Description:

• Small, acaulescent to shortly stemmed, succulent perennials, 5-300 mm high, erect or creeping, rarely pendulous, branched from base; solitary or proliferating from base or subterranean stolons to form small or large clusters; sometimes sunken into ground; roots succulent, terete, or rarely fusiform
• Leaves succulent, rosulate, spirally arranged or rarely distichous, imbricate, erectly spreading to strongly recurved, deltoid-acuminate, lanceolate, triangular, narrowly linear or rarely lorate from a tubular amplexicaul base, often distinctly windowed; both surfaces smooth, asperulous, tuberculate or very rarely pubescent; margins denticulate or smooth, sometimes ciliate, acute or rounded; apex acute, truncate, obtuse, or retuse, sometimes mucronate
• Inflorescence a densely to laxly flowered raceme or panicle, erect to erectly spreading, peduncle terete and herbaceous, bracteate; few flowers opening simultaneously
• Flowers small, pedicellate, ascending
• Perianth tubular, usually bilabiate, rarely regular, tube ± straight, usually slightly obtuse (not gasteriform) at base, indistinctly curved downwards and outwards, segments fused below, contiguous above, lobes short, strongly recurved, apices free, cohering above when wilted, circumscissile below, usually monochrome with colours muted, white or drab greenish grey, rarely slightly pinkish (H. herbacea) or yellowish (H. nortieri)
• Stamens included or barely exserted
• Ovary with many axile ovules; style subulate; stigma minute, apical, included
• Capsule erect, cylindrical, oblong to ovoid, apically obtuse, chartaceous to woody when dry
• Seeds small, dark brown, grey to black, irregularly angled, obscurely winged
• x = 7 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Haworthia Duval
  • Duval: 7 (1809) name conserved
  • Baker: 332 (1896-1897)
  • Berger: 74 (1908)
  • Phillips: 149 (1926)
  • Phillips: 187 (1951)
  • Sölch et al.: 50 (1970)
  • Bayer: 12 (1976)
  • Bayer: 17 (1982)
  • Scott: xviii (1985)
  • Bayer: 1 (1999)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Southern Africa and Mozambique
• Southern Africa: Species ± 70, the greatest diversity in the Western and Eastern Cape, with outliers in Namibia, Mpumalanga