Description:

• Delicate annual or perennial undershrubs to shrubs, rarely treelets, with cartilaginous to soft-wooded branches, rarely perennating in tubers
• Leaves opposite, ± connate, membranous to thickly fleshy, persistent or deciduous, rarely regenerating from base
• Inflorescence a thyrse with 1-many dichasia, rarely reduced to monochasia or a single terminal flower; peduncle present to indistinct, with bracts distinctly shorter to as long as leaves; flowers spreading or stiffly erect, (4)5(-12)-merous
• Corolla with (4)5(-12) petals, basely shortly fused into a tube (often not visible with the naked eye), free lobes often tubular with ± spreading apices
• Stamens (4)5(-12), in one whorl; filaments glabrous and ± fused to corolla tube; anthers included or exserted, without terminal appendage
• Squamae (4)5(-12), free
• Carpels (4)5(-12), usually free and gradually constricted into style terminating in a single stigma, but stigma sometimes sessile or laterally placed
• Seeds ellipsoid, smooth to covered with variously shaped tubercles which are often arranged in vertical rows
• x = 7, 8 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Crassula L.
  • Linnaeus: 282 (1753)
  • Harvey: 332 (1862)
  • Schonland: 151 (1929)
  • Friedrich: 11 (1968)
  • Tölken: 75 (1985)
• Tillaea L.
  • Linnaeus: 128 (1753).
• Bulliarda DC.
  • Candolle: 1 (1801)
  • Harvey: 329 (1862).
• Rochea DC.
  • Candolle: t. 103 (1802).
• Vauanthes Haw.
  • Haworth: 18 (1821).
• Grammanthes DC.
  • Candolle: 392 (1828).
• Helophytum Eckl. & Zeyh.
  • Ecklon & Zeyher: 288 (1836).
• Dinacria Harv.
  • Harvey: 330 (1862).
• Pagella Schönl.
  • Schönland: 67 (1921).
• Rhopalota N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 7 (1931)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species over 300, the centre of distribution in southern Africa but extending beyond Africa to Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand and southern islands
• Southern Africa: Species 150, widespread but concentrated especially in semi-arid, winter-rainfall areas.