Description:

• Shrubs or subshrubs, glabrous or variously pubescent, indumentum of stellate, rarely simple, hairs
• Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, sessile, often imbricate, ericoid, entire, dentate or pinnatifid, linear to ovate to spathulate in outline, occasionally somewhat fleshy
• Capitula discoid, small, densely corymbose, rarely solitary
• Involucre linear, campanulate or urceolate to rotundate; bracts in 3-5 rows, scarious, sometimes ciliate, glabrous or pilose, sometimes glandular
• Receptacle flat, generally paleate, sometimes epaleate; paleae scarious, flat or canaliculate, entire or apically lacerate, glabrous or with few hairs
• Disc florets bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, rarely creamy white, funnel-shaped, gradually expanding into wide 5-lobed limb; tube generally with long-stalked glands
• Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate; apical appendage ovate; endothecial tissue polarised
• Style branches apically truncate, with obtuse sweeping hairs
• Cypselas cylindrical-obovoid, generally with 5-12 protruding and narrow ribs, glabrous or occasionally glandular
• Pappus 0 or often a pseudopappus of stalked glands
• x = 8 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Athanasia L.
  • Linnaeus: 1180 (1763)
  • Harvey: 187 (1865)
  • Hilliard & Burtt: 328 (1973)
  • Källersjö: 530 (1985)
  • Källersjö: 15 (1991)
  • Bremer & Humphries: 95 (1993)
  • Bremer: 448 (1994)
• Stilpnophyton Less.
  • Lessing: 264 (1832).
• Asaemia (Harv.) Benth.
  • Bentham: 433 (1873)
  • Bremer: 193 (1983)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 39, endemic, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape, 1 extending to KwaZulu-Natal and 1 extending to Namibia