Description:

• Erect annual herbs
• Leaves opposite or alternate, narrowly linear, entire, fleshy, semiterete or subterete
• Capitula radiate, terminal, solitary, pedunculate
• Involucre broadly campanulate-hemispherical; involucral bracts imbricate, broad and rounded, herbaceous
• Receptacle conical, epaleate
• Ray florets female, fertile, few, yellow; tube short, somewhat compressed, sparsely glandular; lamina short, oblong-obovate, usually reflexed, glabrous, 3-fid at apex
• Style branches oblong, truncate
• Disc florets bisexual; corolla yellow, irregular, 5-lobed; limb campanulate; tube somewhat compressed, glandular
• Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate; apical appendage ovate, obtuse, with distinct orange-yellow resin gland; endothecial tissue partly polarised; filament collar oblong-cylindric, of subequal cells
• Style fertile with truncate branches; base distinctly swollen, placed on top of narrower, conical-oblong, distinct nectary
• Cypselas dorsiventrally compressed and laterally winged, adaxially smooth, abaxially with closely set longitudinal striae, ending in hair-like apical projections and becoming mucilaginous when soaked; wings hyaline, apically auriculate
• Pappus of 5 or 6 scales

Nomenclature:

• Adenoglossa B.Nord.
  • Nordenstam: 137 (1976)
  • Bremer & Humphries: 157 (1993)
  • Bremer: 472 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Monotypic: Adenoglossa decurrens (Hutch.) B.Nord., endemic, Northern Cape (Richtersveld)