Description:

• Twining herb, pubescent
• Leaves petiolate, broadly cordate, entire, angled, or 3-lobed
• Flowers axillary, long-peduncled, 1-3 together; bracteoles at some distance from calyx
• Calyx of 5 sepals with 2 outer larger than others
• Corolla funnel-shaped or campanulate; limb plicate, 5-angled or obscurely 5-lobed
• Stamens arising at base of corolla tube; included; filaments linear, dilated and with few hairs at base; anthers oblong-linear, lobed at base
• Disc shortly cup-shaped
• Ovary imperfectly 1-locular, with 4 ovules, densely pilose; style simple, included; stigmas 2, ovate-oblong, thick
• Fruit a capsule, dehiscing into 4 valves
• Seeds black, glabrous, opaque
• x = 15

Nomenclature:

• Hewittia Wight & Arn.
  • Wight & Arnott: 22 (1837)
  • Meeuse: 698 (1957)
  • Meeuse & Welman: 52 (2000)
• Shutereia Choisy
  • Choisy: 485 (1833).
• Eremosperma Chiov.
  • Chiovenda: 143 (1936)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 1: Hewittia malabarica (L.) Suresh, tropics and subtropics of Old World
• Southern Africa: Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape