Description:

• Shrublets or acaulescent perennials
• Leaves sometimes large and elliptic
• Inflorescence terminal, spicate, often on long peduncles; bracts large, ovate, usually pubescent, sometimes papery; bracteoles as long as calyx
• Calyx subirregular, often with stalked, glandular hairs; lobes 5, elliptic or lanceolate, with uppermost lobe broadest and often 2-toothed; tube shorter than lobes
• Corolla 1-lipped; lip 5-lobed, lobes rotund; aestivation imbricate; tube longer than lobes, cylindric
• Androecium: fertile stamens 4, arising in upper part of corolla tube, included; filaments linear, shorter than anthers; anthers monothecous; theca sometimes ciliate, muticous; staminodes 0
• Pollen prolate (with squared ends), 3-colpate; surface foveolate
• Disc annular
• Gynoecium: ovary ellipsoid, with 2 ovules in each locule; style filamentous, included; style branches 2, equal, cylindriform
• Capsule oblong-elliptic, estipitate, with inelastic placental bases
• Seeds ovate, compressed, with hygroscopic scales over whole surface
• x = 19 (10) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Crossandra Salisb.
  • Salisbury: t. 12 (1805)
  • Vollesen: 503 (1990)
  • Vos & Edwards: 94 (1992)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 50, Africa, Arabian Peninsula, India, Madagascar
• Southern Africa: Species 4, Swaziland and mainly northern and eastern provinces of South Africa