Description:

• Plants caespitose or with long or short rhizomes
• Culms usually simple, branching only in 1 species (C. microcarpum (Kunth) Pillans)
• Leaf sheaths caducous or semipersistent if culms are branching
• Male inflorescence of many small, poorly defined spikelets aggregated at several fertile nodes, overtopped by caducous spathes
• Male spikelets with few to many florets, usually somewhat compressed, with few to 0 sterile bracts; perianth ± trigonous or compressed, often somewhat arcuate, usually much longer than subtending bract; segments 6, in 2 whorls, outer lateral ones boat-shaped, mostly keeled, glabrous or villous on keel, inner oblong or lanceolate, dorsally rounded; anthers ovate-oblong, with a prominent apiculus; ovary rudimentary
• Female inflorescence resembling male
• Female spikelets resembling male, generally fewer and more crowded; perianth trigonous or compressed; perianth segments osseous, often black, subequal or inner longer than outer, outer segments not keeled; staminodes well developed, strap-shaped; ovary trigonous, 3-lobed or compressed 3-locular; styles 3, free, plumose
• Fruit a dehiscent 1-3-seeded capsule
• Seeds highly ornamented

Nomenclature:

• Chondropetalum Rottb.
  • Rottbøll: 12 (1772)
  • Pillans: 297 (1928), including Dovea Kunth and Askidiosperma Steud.
  • Linder: 427 (1985)
  • Linder: 247 (1991)
• Dovea Kunth
  • Kunth: 457 (1841)
  • Masters: 99 (1897)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species ± 12, mainly Western Cape, from Clanwilliam District to Albany in Eastern Cape