Description:

• Perennial herbs with annual flowering shoots; sap milky
• Stems erect or rarely ascending, branched or unbranched, with indumentum evenly distributed or in vertical lines
• Leaves simple, entire, usually opposite, less often verticillate or irregularly inserted; petiole short or absent; lamina usually very narrowly linear, rarely elliptic, suborbicular, hastate or obovate, hairy or glabrous; margin revolute, in narrowly linear leaves usually only midrib visible on lower surface
• Flowers in fascicles at distal nodes of stem; bracteoles inconspicuous; pedicels pilose
• Calyx shorter than corolla; segments triangular, dorsally pilose, ventrally glabrous, margin ciliate
• Corolla campanulate; lobes elliptic, spreading or rarely reflexed at anthesis, very rarely (A. connatum) tips remaining united; dorsal surface usually pilose, less often glabrous; ventral surface pubescent or pilose, indumentum variously distributed, or glabrous, left-hand margin glabrous, right-hand margin ciliate or glabrous
• Corona: lobes alternating with petals, each representing a dorsal outgrowth from opposing stamen, delicate or slightly chartaceous, never fleshy
• Stamens united at base to form a hollow column from which corona lobes arise
• Anthers 2-locular, with a membranous apical appendage resting on style head, and horny anther wings
• Pollinia pendulous, ± sausage-shaped; germination zone, when present, represented by a limited, thinner, transparent area at point of attachment to short, slender caudicle; corpuscle linear, not flanged (except in A. hirundo)
• Follicles with or usually without soft appressed bristles
• Seeds many, compressed-ovoid with dark brown rugose testa and apical tuft of hairs

Nomenclature:

• Aspidoglossum E.Mey.
  • Meyer: 200 (1838)
  • Kupicha: 633 (1984)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 34, distributed throughout southern and tropical Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 22, mainly along eastern side of subcontinent