Description:

• Shrubs or sometimes small trees up to ± 4 m high, aromatic, with sessile glands on several parts, and hairs, if present, simple, sometimes gland-tipped
• Leaves usually ternate, sometimes opposite, lanceolate, elliptic or ovate, usually pubescent
• Flowers bracteate, pedicellate, bibracteolate, in 1-many-flowered cymes, solitary in axils of upper leaves; secreting nonvolatile oil for pollinators
• Bracts paired at each inflorescence branching and subtending pedicels
• Calyx 5-lobed, divided almost to base; lobes imbricate, posterior segment usually largest
• Corolla bilabiate, 5-lobed; tube short, strongly pouched on anterior side; mouth slit-like, lips pressed together or slightly open; limb oblique, upper lip erect, 2-lobed, exterior in bud; lower lip 3-lobed
• Stamens 4, didynamous, ascending, usually included; filaments arising at top of short, narrow, cylindrical base of corolla tube, swollen bases embracing top of ovary, rather thick; anterior pair basally twisted so all anthers face outwards; anthers bithecate; thecae divergent, confluent at maturity; staminode 1
• Ovary bi- or sometimes trilocular, cylindrical or conical, glandular; placenta T-shaped in cross section, whole surface ovuliferous; ovules many; style long, slender, persistent; stigma small
• Fruit a woody, ovoid, septicidal capsule, surrounded by calyx
• Seeds many, fusiform; testa deeply reticulate
• x = 20 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Bowkeria Harv.
  • Harvey: t. 37 (1859)
  • Hiern: 218 (1904)
  • Hilliard: 7 (1969)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 3, mostly eastern half, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape, from ± Woodbush, along Drakensberg to Hogsback; montane, usually near streams and on forest margins