Description:

• Annual herbs, delicate, glabrous
• Leaves radical, rosulate, sessile, obovate to linear, entire or bluntly lobed, succulent; cauline leaves few, often amplexicaul
• Capitula radiate, few-flowered, corymbosely arranged on long, almost leafless scapes
• Involucre ecalyculate, campanulate; bracts in 1 row, free or connate at base, obovate to lanceolate
• Receptacle convex, epaleate
• Ray florets female; corolla yellow; tube with linear or elliptic lamina 2.5 × its length
• Disc florets functionally male; corolla yellow; tube funnel-shaped or campanulate from cylindric base, with 5 lanceolate lobes
• Anthers oblong, ecalcarate and ecaudate; with oblong, apical appendage; endothecial tissue radial
• Style linear, with linear, obtuse branches, truncate, with conical appendage, or undivided
• Cypselas obovoid, smooth, glabrous
• Pappus 0 in disc florets; of many fine, scabrid bristles, persistent or caducous in marginal florets
• x = 9

Nomenclature:

• Gymnodiscus Less.
  • Lessing: 95 (1831)
  • Harvey: 345 (1865)
  • Bremer: 502 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 2: Gymnodiscus capillaris (L.f.) DC. and G. linearifolia DC., endemic, Namaqualand (Northern Cape) and Western Cape