Description:

• Shrublets or loosely branched woody shrubs up to 800 mm high, erect, decumbent, or prostrate, with distinct internodes; stems maroon to ochre, with or without short to long hairs (bladder cells)
• Leaves decussate, sometimes trigonous or triquetrous, up to ± 50 mm long, 4 mm in diameter, free, bases rarely fused, with a rounded tip; mostly short-lived, easily dropped but rarely all leaves shed during dry season; with glistening papillae or bladder cells which are sometimes xeromorphic
• Flowers solitary or in dichasia branched to various degrees, mostly pedicellate, on short, lateral branchlets, up to ± 30 mm in diameter; opening around midday, closing by evening
• Sepals 5 or 6
• Petals 1- or 2-seriate white, yellow, orange, scarlet or purple
• Stamens standing in a central cone; staminodes, if present, white, pink or deep black, black staminodes associated with yellow or red flowers; when staminodes absent, stamens widely spreading
• Nectary in several crenulate parts
• Ovary flat or somewhat convex on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 4-6, filiform to lanceolate, or plumose, rarely 3-angled
• Fruit a 5(6)-locular capsule, of Drosanthemum type; sometimes with seed-pockets; valve wings present; expanding keels contiguous, parallel or divergent; covering membranes present; closing bodies very small or 0; capsule often turning from light grey to blackish when wet
• Seeds small, rough, with ribs and tubercles
• x = 9

• Flowering mostly in spring and summer

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Creeping or shrubby perennials with visible bladder cell idioblasts on the leaves
  • Fruit with valve wings and covering membranes

Nomenclature:

• Drosanthemum Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 14, 29 (1927)
  • Friedrich: 37 (1970)
  • Herre: 142 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 300 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species ± 120, mainly southwestern parts including S Namibia and western, southern and central South Africa