Description:

• Herbs, undershrubs, or shrubs, usually hairy
• Leaves shortly petiolate, usually oblong-lanceolate or lanceolate, entire, 3-5-nerved
• Flowers solitary, capitate or in short, terminal panicles; bracts sometimes present, small
• Calyx 4- or 5-lobed; tube ovoid or campanulate, produced above ovary, glabrous or with stellate bristles, or scales; lobes nearly as long as tube, often alternating with bristly teeth or thick processes, persistent or deciduous
• Petals 4 or 5, obovate, sessile
• Stamens 8-10, unequal; characterised by a connective or pedoconnective incurved at back, without heel or 'talon', provided with 2 lateral appendages; anthers linear, with wavy margins, opening by a terminal pore
• Ovary adnate to wall of calyx tube, 4- or 5-locular, with many ovules in each locule, glandular-hairy, hirsute or with a crown of setae at apex; style straight or curved, usually longer than stamens; stigma simple or subcapitate
• Fruit a capsule, included in persistent calyx
• Seed small, cochleate
• x = 17 (10, 16?)
• Return to Melastomastrum

Nomenclature:

• Dissotis Benth.
  • Bentham: 346 (1849) name conserved
  • Fernandes & Fernandes: 240 (1978)
  • Jacques-Félix: 268 (1995)
• Osbeckia Sond.
  • Sonder: 518 (1862)
  • Jacques-Félix: 238 (1995) in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 120, Africa
• Southern Africa: Species ± 3, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, throughout KwaZulu-Natal to Eastern Cape border area