Description:

• Subshrubs or shrubs, rarely annual, sometimes prostrate, dichotomously branched; often with thick tap-root
• Leaves alternate or opposite
• Capitula radiate, few- to several-flowered, solitary, terminal, or sessile in forks of branches, rarely subumbellate, sometimes shortly pedunculate
• Involucre cylindric to ellipsoid; bracts in 4-11 rows, sometimes with a membranous appendage
• Receptacle nude, or sometimes honeycombed and sometimes with rims of pits produced
• Ray florets female; corolla tube cylindric, with somewhat elliptic, 3-toothed lamina; ovary ± oblong, sometimes hairy
• Style slender, with linear, obtuse branches
• Pappus a crown of short setae
• Disc florets bisexual, sterile or fertile; corolla tube widened above, with 4 or 5 lanceolate lobes
• Anthers tailed or rarely eared, with a lanceolate, rarely oblong, bifid, apical appendage
• Ovary linear or oblong
• Style slender, with linear, truncate, penicillate branches, undivided in sterile florets
• Pappus a crown of short, unequal paleae, rarely with 2 barbellate bristles as long as corolla tube

Nomenclature:

• Nestlera Spreng.
  • Sprengel: 568 (1818)
  • Harvey: 295 (1865)
  • Anderberg & Bremer: 1061 (1991)
  • Anderberg: 332 (1994)
• Relhania L'Hér. in part
  • Bremer: 1 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Monotypic: Nestlera biennis (Jacq.) Spreng., endemic to Northern and Western Cape