Description:

• Small annual or perennial herbs; stems leafy, pubescence usually patent, rarely ± retrorse, hairs gland-tipped or not
• Leaves opposite, occasionally alternate below inflorescence, rarely radical, usually elliptical to ovate, stem leaves usually narrower than basal ones and sometimes linear to narrowly oblanceolate, mostly petiolate, at times merely narrowed at base, usually few-toothed to serrate in upper half, sometimes entire, usually somewhat pubescent
• Flowers usually shortly pedicellate, axillary, in racemose inflorescences, elongate or capitate, always erect
• Bracts sometimes leaf-like, longer than broad, adnate to pedicel only, or sometimes to extreme base of calyx as well
• Calyx bilabiate, membranous; tube shorter than anterior lip which is deeply to shallowly divided
• Corolla bilabiate, membranous, persistent; tube glabrous outside but backs of lobes sometimes glandular-puberulous; posterior lip 2-lobed, exterior in bud, base of lip with orange/yellow patch or two posterior lobes wholly orange and there either glabrous or bearded with clavate hairs; anterior lip 3-lobed; lobes entire
• Stamens 4, all exserted or 2 in throat and 2 exserted; anterior pair exceeding posterior pair; posterior filaments decurrent to base of corolla tube; anthers synthecate, dorsifixed; staminodes 0
• Nectary small, on shorter side of ovary
• Ovary bilocular, elliptical, base slightly oblique, glandular-puberulous or glabrous on upper part; ovules many per locule; style filiform, passing gradually into flattened, lingulate stigma with two marginal bands of stigmatic papillae, exserted
• Fruit a septicidal capsule with a short loculicidal split at tip of each valve
• Seeds elliptic-oblong, black, on a round, centrally depressed cushion with irregular margins; testa tightly investing endosperm, coarsely and deeply reticulate (3-8 round pits in each longitudinal band)

Nomenclature:

• Melanospermum Hilliard
  • Hilliard: 482 (1989)
  • Hilliard: 387 (1994)
• Phyllopodium Benth. in part
  • Hiern: 317 (1904)
• Polycarena Benth. in part
  • Hiern: 327 (1904)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 6, Southern Africa and W Zimbabwe
• Southern Africa: In all northern areas including northernmost Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, not in Lesotho or the Cape provinces; usually under out-cropping rocks, sometimes in open sand