Description:

• Perennial undershrubs; branches opposite, rigid, spreading almost at right angles; viscid-pubescent
• Leaves opposite, sessile, narrow, oblong or lanceolate, scabrid
• Flowers solitary, axillary, shortly pedicellate or subsessile, ebracteolate
• Calyx tubular-campanulate, 5-lobed, 10-ribbed; tube cylindrical; lobes lanceolate, shorter than tube
• Corolla tubular, slightly irregular, 5-lobed; tube a little curved, funnel-shaped, ± as long as calyx; lobes obovate, shorter than tube, spreading; 2 posterior ones somewhat united, partly or wholly interior in bud
• Stamens 4, didynamous, subequal, arising ± in middle of corolla tube, exserted; filaments filiform, slightly longer in one pair, with membranous margins; anthers linear-oblong, unithecate by abortion, dehiscing by short, apical slit, second theca represented by minute wart at apex of filament
• Ovary unequally bilocular, ovoid; ovules 6-10 in 2 rows in each locule; style terete, exserted; stigma simple
• Fruit a very oblique capsule, flattened laterally and grooved down each side, somewhat acute above, ± as long as retaining calyx
• Seeds subquadrate; funicle somewhat elongated and enlarged above; testa mucilaginous and swelling on wetting

Nomenclature:

• Hiernia S.Moore
  • Moore: 196, t. 211 (1880) under Acanthaceae
  • Clarke: 261 (1900) under Acanthaceae
  • Merxmüller & Roessler: 24 (1967) under Scrophulariaceae

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Monotypic: Hiernia angolensis S.Moore, Angola and Namibia