Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs, erect or procumbent, sometimes with a short swollen stem and tuberous roots, sometimes malodorous, rarely small trees with swollen stems, or shrubs with or without swollen main branches, sometimes spiny; usually with short-stalked and/or glandular hairs with head of 4 or more mucilage-filled cells
• Leaves ± opposite or upper sometimes alternate to apparently fascicled, petiolate to subsessile, sometimes with nectaries at base of petiole, simple, entire to pinnatilobed, sometimes palmate, sometimes subsucculent; stipules 0
• Flowers bisexual, irregular, weakly 2-lipped, usually axillary and solitary, rarely in raceme-like, terminal inflorescences; pedicels usually with 2 extrafloral nectaries (abortive flowers) at base
• Calyx 5-partite; lobes separate almost to base or rarely free or ± connate and spathe-like
• Corolla gamopetalous; lobes 5, sub- or unequal; limb often oblique; tube usually obliquely campanulate, sometimes funnel-shaped or cylindrical, posteriorly often gibbous, saccate, or rarely spurred at base
• Stamens 4, ± didynamous, (often also 1 staminode, posterior), mostly arising near base of corolla tube, alternating with corolla lobes, rarely exserted; anthers bithecate, thecae hanging from apex of connective and often somewhat divergent, rarely spreading, or dorsally attached to connective and parallel, opening lengthwise; connective usually gland-tipped
• Nectary/disc hypogynous, annular or unilateral, fleshy
• Ovary superior, sessile, (1)2-locular; often falsely 4-locular: locules often partly or fully divided by false septa from carpellary midribs; ovules 1-many per compartment; placentas axile or rarely parietal and intruded; style filiform, exceeding anthers; stigma usually bilobed
• Fruit variable, dehiscent or indehiscent, often with spines, horns or wings
• Seeds 1-many per compartment; testa often characteristically sculptured, sometimes forming wings; embryo straight; endosperm 0 or sparse and oily

Nomenclature:

• Pedaliaceae
  • Stapf: 253 (1897)
  • Stapf: 454 (1904)
  • Stapf: 538 (1906)
  • Bruce: 417 (1953a)
  • Bruce: 1 (1953b)
  • Lawrence: 126 (1957)
  • Straka & Ihlenfeldt: 175 (1965)
  • Ihlenfeldt:43 (1967a)
  • Ihlenfeldt: 593 (1967b)
  • Merxmüller & Schreiber: 1 (1968)
  • Ihlenfeldt: 86 (1988)
  • Brummitt: 632 (1992)
  • Hargreaves: 141 (1993)
  • Ihlenfeldt: 1063 (1994)
  • Mabberley: 1 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 17, species ± 85 (including Martyniaceae), mainly tropical and subtropical in Old and New World
• Southern Africa: Genera 10 (2 exotic), species 32 or 33, mainly in more arid areas
• Notes:
  • *Ibicella and *Proboscidea (sometimes placed under Martyniaceae, garden escapes or agricultural weeds from warm Americas
  • *Sesamum orientale L. (= S. indicum L.), originally an Indian species, cultivated for its oil seeds

References:

• BRUCE, E.A. 1953a. Notes on African Pedaliaceae. Kew Bulletin 1953
• BRUCE, E.A. 1953b. Flora of tropical East Africa, Pedaliaceae
• BRUMMITT, R.K. 1992. Vascular plant families and genera. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• HARGREAVES, B.J. 1993. The Sesame family in Botswana. Botswana Notes & Records 25
• IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1967a. Über die Abgrenzung und die natürliche Gliederung der Pedaliaceae R. Br. Mitteilungen aus dem Staatsinstitut für Allgemeine Botanik Hamburg 12
• IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1967b. Bemerkungen zur Taxonomie der südwestafrikanischen Pedaliaceae. Mitteilungen der Botanischen Staatssammlung München 6
• IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1988. Pedaliaceae. Flora zambesiaca 8, 3
• IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1994. Phytogeography of Pedaliaceae R.Br. In J.H. Seyani & A.C. Chikuni, Proceedings of the XIIIth Plenary Meeting of AETFAT, Malawi 2
• LAWRENCE, G.H.M. 1957. Proboscidea and other unicorn plants (Martyniaceae). Baileya 5
• MABBERLEY, D.J. 1997. The plant-book, edn 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• MERXMÜLLER, H. & SCHREIBER, A. 1968. Pedaliaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 131
• STAPF, O. 1897. Pedaliaceae and Martyniaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4, 3b
• STAPF, O. 1904. Pedalineæ. Flora capensis 4,2
• STAPF, O. 1906. Pedalineæ. Flora of tropical Africa 4, 2
• STRAKA, H. & IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1965. Pollenmorphologie und Systematik der Pedaliaceae R.Br. Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen 41

Resources:

• Key to Pedaliaceae genera

• Pedaliaceae genera: