Description:

• Perennial or annual hygrophytic herbs; stems erect or ascending, rooting from lower nodes or with a basal root-crown
• Leaves spirally arranged, mostly linear to oblong, acute, sheathing at base
• Inflorescence terminal, lax to dense, often a leafy compound thyrse, glandular-pubescent or glabrous; bracteoles small or lacking; pedicels short
• Flowers bisexual, small
• Sepals free, equal, persistent
• Petals free, equal or lower one narrower, blue, mauve, pink or yellow, deliquescent
• Stamens 5 or 6, equal or upper 3 slightly different from lower 3; upper 3 fused basally; filaments glabrous
• Ovary 2-celled, 1 ovule in each locule, glabrous
• Fruit a 2-valved capsule, shortly stipitate, dorsiventrally compressed, ellipsoidal-obovoid, apex retuse or acute
• Seeds depressed-hemispherical, ribbed or smooth, occasionally covered by small glandular discs; hilum linear; embryotega dorsal
• x = 6 (8, 11)

Nomenclature:

• Floscopa Lour.
  • Loureiro: 189, 192 (1790)
  • Clarke: 14 (1897)
  • Schreiber: 11 (1967)
  • Brenan: 26 (1968)
  • Obermeyer & Faden: 56 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 20, widespread in warmer regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and South America
• Southern Africa: Species 3, Namibia (Caprivi), N Botswana, northern provinces of South Africa, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal