Description:

• Procumbent annual or perennial herbs or suffrutices
• Leaves often in unequal pairs, sometimes spinous-toothed
• Inflorescence terminal, spicate, decussate, or scorpioid cymes, sometimes reduced; bracts 8, usually spinous-toothed, accrescent; bracteoles resembling bracts, sometimes 0
• Calyx irregular; lobes 4; anticous one emarginate, bifid or bispinose and posticous one larger; lateral lobes 2, small; tube shorter than lobes
• Corolla 1-lipped; lip usually with reflexed hairs on both sides; lobes usually 3-5, variable, with laterals smaller than others or obsolete; aestivation imbricate; tube shorter than lobes, subcylindric, with ring of hairs in mouth
• Androecium: fertile stamens 4, equal, arising in mouth of corolla tube; filaments terete, with those of anticous stamens flattened above and produced into a protuberance as long as or shorter than anthers; anthers monothecous; theca ciliate, muticous; staminodes 0
• Pollen prolate, 3-colpate; surface with shallow reticulations
• Disc annular or saucer-shaped
• Gynoecium: ovary ± ellipsoid, with 1 or 2 ovules in each locule, with 2 glandular bodies or cap at apex; style linear; style branches 2, equal, very short, broader than long
• Capsule estipitate, with inelastic placental bases
• Seeds laterally compressed, ovate, with long, feathery, hygroscopic hairs over whole surface
• x = 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 23

Nomenclature:

• Blepharis Juss.
  • Jussieu: 103 (1789)
  • Obermeyer: 105 (1937)
  • Meyer: 18 (1968)
• Acanthodium Delile
  • Delile: t. 33 (1813) in part
• Blepharacanthus Nees
  • Nees von Esenbeck: 385 (1836)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 80, Africa to East Indies, also Mediterranean
• Southern Africa: Species ± 45, widespread, but mostly in arid parts