Description:

• Herbs, creeping or erect
• Leaves opposite or alternate, rarely 3-nate, sessile or shortly petioled
• Flowers usually axillary and solitary on slender pedicels, rarely in a lax raceme
• Calyx 5-partite; segments lanceolate or subulate, spreading
• Corolla 5-partite; segments obovate or linear
• Stamens arising at base of corolla and shorter than it; filaments usually bearded
• Ovary superior, globose; style simple
• Capsule enclosed in persistent calyx and with persistent style, circumscissile or indehiscent
• Seeds ellipsoid, 3-angled or 3-winged or with a circular wing forming a concave face and deeply keeled on other side
• x = 10, 11 (7) (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Anagallis L.
  • Linnaeus: 148 (1753)
  • Pax & Knuth: 321 (1905)
  • Harvey & Wright: 428 (1906)
  • Taylor: 321 (1956)
  • Taylor: 133 (1958)
  • Dyer: 13 (1963)
  • Guillaumet: 1 (1981)
  • Peltier: 5 (1981)
  • Kupicha: 189 (1983)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 20-30, fairly cosmopolitan, mostly under relatively moist conditions
• Southern Africa: Species 4, Swaziland, Lesotho, all provinces of South Africa except Northern Cape