Description:

• Xeromorphic, evergreen shrublets or shrubs with somewhat 4-angled branchlets
• Leaves decussate, simple, subsessile, cordate-ovate, silky when young, glabrescent; stipules petiolar, minute
• Flowers bisexual, regular, 4-merous, in short, much-branched, bracteate, axillary racemes along upper twigs; bracts 4 or 6, 2 lowest smallest, persistent; axillary bracteoles sometimes present
• Perianth 4-partite, persistent, rose-coloured; segments imbricate, 2 outer clasping the inner
• Stamens 8, arising from base of perianth and slightly shorter than it; filaments linear; anthers elliptic, dorsifixed, versatile, 2-thecous, bilobed at base
• Ovary superior, 4-locular, narrowly 4-winged, with 2 collateral, pendulous ovules in each locule, rarely 1 ovule aborted; styles 4, twisted at base, narrowed and cohering upwards, longer than ovary; stigmas small
• Fruit a 4-locular capsule, dehiscing by 4 longitudinal sutures on wings of locules
• Seed single in each locule, whitish, smooth, shiny, with brittle testa

Nomenclature:

• Geissolomataceae
  • Jussieu: 15 (1846)
  • Stephens: 98 (1915)
  • Dahlgren & Rao: 207 (1969)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 1, Western Cape

References:

• DAHLGREN, R. & RAO, V.S. 1969. A study of the family Geissolomataceae. Botaniska Notiser 122
• JUSSIEU, A. DE. 1846. Sur la famille des Pénaeacées. Annales des sciences naturelles sér. 3 Botanique 6
• STEPHENS, E.L. 1915. Geissolomaceae. Flora capensis 5,2

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