Description:

• Shrublets, rarely herbs with branches usually decumbent, rarely erect, carnose or sometimes slightly woody
• Leaves spirally arranged but usually in dense clusters, sessile or petiolate, free, fleshy, persistent
• Inflorescence usually a spike-like thyrse, rarely branched, with one to many monochasia each with 1(-5) flowers; peduncle present, with distinct bracts abruptly shorter than leaves; flowers erect or spreading (pendulous in A. phillipsiae), 5-merous
• Calyx with 5 triangular, sharply acute lobes
• Corolla fused into tube, and spreading lobes joined at base by a membrane
• Stamens 10, in 2 whorls; filaments glabrous or minutely papillose and fused to lower third of corolla tube; anthers protruding or included, with terminal appendages spherical or almost so
• Squamae 5, free
• Carpels 5, usually free, gradually tapering into short styles
• Seeds ellipsoid, with constrictions before abruptly widening at blunt proximal end, covered with vertical ridges and dense horizontal striations in grooves
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Adromischus Lem.
  • Lemaire: 59 (1852)
  • Smith: 613 (1939)
  • Jacobsen: 189 (1966)
  • Friedrich: 1 (1968)
  • Tölken: 382 (1979)
  • Tölken: 37 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 27, endemic, widespread