Description:

• Perennial herbs or small shrubs, old portions of stems often covered by persistent leaf bases
• Leaves usually in basal rosettes, but densely leafy branches sometimes present, obovate, oblanceolate, spathulate or linear
• Inflorescence a panicle with terminal, one-sided spikes; spikes lax or compact, of 1-8(-12)-flowered spikelets; scapes terete, erect, spreading or decumbent, glabrous or occasionally pubescent, smooth or more often variously lepidote or rough, with raised pits or glands; bracts on scape and its branches scale-like, 2 subtending each spikelet, inner one of which generally more membranous than other; spikelet consisting of a comparatively large bract with membranous margin enveloping 1-several flower buds, each one of which subtended by a membranous bracteole
• Calyx usually infundibuliform, obconical or tubular, ribbed, membranous and slightly or horizontally expanded in upper portion, limb hyaline, 5(rarely 10)-lobed
• Corolla: petals 5, longer than calyx, divided nearly to base or with a short tube
• Stamens 5, attached to petals near base; filaments slender; anthers oblong, versatile, divided up to point of attachment (halfway)
• Ovary 5-angled, with an apical projection into ovary chamber to near top of ovule; styles 5, free at base, filiform, folded in bud, arising from top of angles of ovary; distyly occurs; stigmas cylindrically filiform
• Fruit a capsule with solitary seed
• x = 9 (5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Limonium Mill.
  • Miller: [790] (1754) name conserved
  • Adanson: 283 (1763)
  • Jussieu: 92 (1789)
  • Sprague: 267 (1924)
  • Adamson: 665 (1950)
  • Rickett & Stafleu: 78 (1960)
  • Dyer: 20 (1963)
  • Roessler & Schreiber: 2 (1967)
  • Kubitzki: 529 (1993)
• Statice L.
  • Linnaeus: 274 (1753) in part
  • Linnaeus: 135 (1754) in part
  • Miller: 1328 (1754)
  • Adanson: 283 (1763)
  • Endlicher: 349 (1837)
  • Boissier: 634 (1848)
  • Wright: 419 (1906)
  • Sprague: 267 (1924)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 350; maritime and arid regions of northern hemisphere, Africa and Australia, mainly in the Mediterranean; especially in coastal habitats, several species are valuable ornamentals
• Southern Africa: Species 11, in Namibia, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape