Description:

• Shrublets, shrubs or occasionally small trees, erect or procumbent; plants dioecious or monoecious
• Leaves alternate or fasciculate, sessile or shortly petiolate, 1-3-foliolate, often appearing simple by reduction; leaflets entire, toothed or lobed; stipules triangular, acute, adnate to petiole and sheathing stem, rarely 0
• Inflorescence a single flower in axil of unmodified to highly modified leaves, scattered or aggregated in specialised zones or capitate with both male and female flowers, or cones with female flowers only
• Flowers unisexual (very rarely bisexual), sessile or pedicellate
• Male flowers with 3 or 4 petaloid calyx lobes, usually green tinged with red or yellow, free or connate ± to centre, deciduous or persistent; petals 0; stamens 3-50, usually 8-20; anthers didymous; carpels 0
• Female flowers with calyx lobes connate below into a ribbed, winged, hairy or smooth, urceolate tube which completely envelopes receptacle; gynoecium of 1-3 free carpels; ovules solitary in each carpel, pendulous; styles 1-3, long and filiform, exserted, or very short; stigmas lorate, slightly bent to tightly curved, margins serrate to widely fimbriate, pale yellow or maroon
• Fruit usually a single achene, sometimes 2 or 3, in persistent receptacle

Nomenclature:

• Cliffortia L.
  • Linnaeus: 1038 (1753)
  • Linnaeus: 460 (1754)
  • Jussieu: 337 (1789)
  • Candolle: 595 (1825)
  • Endlicher: 1245 (1840)
  • Harvey: 292 (1862)
  • Hooker: 624 (1865)
  • Weimarck: 19 (1934)
  • Weimarck: 168 (1948)
  • Levyns: 444 (1950)
  • Graham: 40 (1960)
  • Mendes: 24 (1978)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species ± 112, mostly Western Cape with 2 extending into tropical Africa