Description:

• Robust, ± prostrate, much-branched annual herbs, with dense glandular pubescence on most parts; stems terete, striate
• Leaves large, ± opposite, long-petiolate, broadly ovate to ± orbicular, strongly cordate at base, sometimes the 2 sides overlapping, obscurely lobed, margins remotely dentate, both surfaces glandular-pubescent; veins usually 5, digitate at base, otherwise pinnate
• Flowers pendent in dense terminal racemes on peduncles, elongating in fruit; yellow, sometimes with red, dotted honey guides on lower corolla lobes; extrafloral nectaries 0; bracts elliptic, with fringe of glandular hairs, fewer elsewhere
• Calyx shorter than corolla, oblique, of 5 free lobes, varying linear-lanceolate to obovate, lowermost 2 broadest, apices obtuse to acute or acuminate, fringed like bracts
• Corolla obliquely campanulate; tube narrowing just above base but widening rapidly above, sometimes somewhat curved; limb sub-bilabiate, flaring; lobes broadly obovate, unequal, lowermost broadest
• Stamens didynamous, included; anthers with thecae spreading; staminode 1
• Nectary regular
• Ovary ovate, tapering into long, terete, persistent style, 2-carpellate but 1-locular with (in cross section) short-stemmed, T-shaped intrusions of 2 parietal placentas dividing area into 5 chambers, 4 peripheral and 1 central; ovules many, borne on peripheral edges of septa, descending; stigma broader than style, 2-lobed
• Fruit a large, woody, cylindrical-ovoid capsule, tapering into a slender, curved beak longer than capsule; surface covered with rough protuberances or with ascending, conical spines from woody endocarp and piercing outer, somewhat fleshy pericarp; splitting longitudinally into 2 valves down centre of beak and parallel to septa
• Seeds obovate, tuberculate; testa finely transversely ridged
• x = 8 (1 report, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Ibicella Van Eselt.
  • Van Eseltine: 31 (1929)
  • Stapf: 263 (1897) as Proboscidea
  • Bailey: 909 (1949)
  • Lawrence: 126 (1957)
  • Henderson & Anderson: 300 (1966)
  • Ihlenfeldt: 43, t. 11 (1967)
  • Bailey & Bailey: 588 (1977)
  • Wells et al.: 298 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 3, warm and tropical South America
• Southern Africa: Species 1: *Ibicella lutea (Lindl.) Van Eselt., introduced from Brazil; garden escape or weed of cultivation