Erect, perennial herbs or subshrubs, usually with quadrangular branches
Leaves opposite, sessile, linear to lanceolate; stipule sheath truncate, bearing hairs and colleters or 2-several teeth
Flowers never truly heterostylous; in terminal, fasciculate corymbs
Calyx 4-partite; segments linear-subulate
Corolla 4-lobed, white, mauve or purple; throat and lobes glabrous within or sparsely pilose; tube long, narrowly cylindric below and slightly expanded above
Stamens with anthers sessile or subsessile, included or only tips exserted
Ovary 2-locular, with many ovules in each locule, attached to shortly stalked, shield-like placentas; style glabrous or papillose, usually exserted; stigmas linear-oblong, densely papillate
Fruit an ovoid or subglobose capsule, crowned by persistent calyx, beak present
Seeds many, angular, smooth
x = 9 (1 report, aneuploids)
Nomenclature:
Conostomium (Stapf) Cufod.
Cufodontis: 85 (1948)
Bremekamp: 125 (1952)
Verdcourt: 242 (1976)
Verdcourt: 101 (1989)
Oldenlandia L. sect. Conostomium Stapf
Stapf: 517 (1906)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 9, tropical East Africa
Southern Africa: Species 2: Conostomium natalense (Hochst.) Bremek., Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape; and C. zoutpansbergense (Bremek.) Bremek., Northern Province
References:
BREMEKAMP. C.E.B. 1952. The African Oldenlandieae s.l. Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, afdeling Natuurkunde, sect. 2. 48, 2
CUFODONTIS, G. 1948. Conostomium. Nuovo Giornale Botanico Italiano 55
STAPF, O. 1906. Plantae novae Daweanae in Uganda lectae. Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 37
VERDCOURT, B. 1976. Flora of tropical East Africa. Rubiaceae (part 1)
VERDCOURT, B. 1989. Rubiaceae. Flora zambesiaca 5,1
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