Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs, variably hairy
• Leaves alternate, entire or variously lobed
• Capitula disciform or inconspicuously radiate, small, in subglobose or cymose corymbs, terminal
• Involucre hemispherical to campanulate; bracts in 1-3 rows, usually with membranous margins and glandular
• Receptacle flat or convex, usually honeycombed with rim of pits sometimes produced, epaleate
• Ray florets female, in few to many rows; corolla yellow; tube cylindric, puberulent, strap-shaped or sometimes shortly 3- or 4-(5)-lobed; lamina narrow or elliptic, entire or 2- or 3-toothed
• Style filiform, with linear branches
• Disc florets bisexual and usually fertile; corolla yellow; tube ± funnel-shaped, 5-lobed, puberulent
• Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate, with lanceolate, apical appendage
• Style broadly triangular above, outer surfaces with triangular, coarsely papillose branches
• Cypselas obovoid or ellipsoid, often somewhat compressed, pubescent and often glandular
• Pappus of barbellate bristles in 1 row, not or scarcely accrescent when mature; florets readily visible among pappus
• x = 9

Nomenclature:

• Nidorella Cass.
  • Cassini: 469 (1825)
  • Harvey: 86 (1865)
  • Merxmüller: 117 (1967)
  • Wild: 209 (1969)
  • Wild: 62 (1975)
  • Hilliard: 79 (1977)
  • Bremer: 427 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 13, mainly Africa, 1 in Madagascar
• Southern Africa: Species 11, widespread