Description:

• Perennial shrublets or shrubs, rarely herbs, mostly branch-shedders, erect; branches woody at base, often forming dense mats, lateral branches alternate, secund, spreading
• Leaves opposite or alternate, small, mostly obovate; stipules 0
• Inflorescence often clearly separated from well-developed vegetative base
• Flowers perigynous, bisexual, axillary, sessile or stalked, sometimes in terminal cymes, distal ones often with adnate bracts and bracteoles
• Perianth 4- or 5-lobed; tube ± campanulate
• Stamens 8-10, in alternisepalous pairs; filaments flat, tapering upwards; anthers small, yellow
• Ovary superior, 2-5-locular, usually glandular; ovule solitary in each locule, pendulous, campylotropous; styles 2(-5), free or united below; stigmatic along inner surface
• Fruit a small, weakly hygrochastic or xerochastic capsule
• Seeds compressed, reniform to orbicular

Nomenclature:

• Galenia L.
  • Linnaeus: 359 (1753)
  • Linnaeus: 169 (1754)
  • Schellenberg: 500 (1913)
  • Adamson: 87 (1956)
  • Friedrich: 47 (1970)
  • Bogle: 449 (1970)
  • Bittrich: 217 (1990)
  • Hartmann: 45 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 30, Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 30, Namibia, Botswana, Free State and Northern Cape