Perennial herbs with persistent woody main root and 5-7 prostrate annual stems with many lateral branchlets; plant subglabrous to villous, covered with mucilage glands
Leaves opposite, subsessile to long-petiolate, very variable in shape, indentation and pubescence; lamina narrowly to broadly ovate, crenate to serrate or pinnatipartite to pinnatilobed, inferior surface densely mealy-glandular
Flowers solitary, axillary, pendent, with long, erect pedicels; white to pink or mauve, sometimes violet or yellow
Calyx much shorter than corolla tube, somewhat oblique, pubescent; segments linear-lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate
Corolla pilose; tube constricted near base and somewhat saccate on posterior side, then obliquely campanulate, curved; limb sub-bilabiate, upper and lateral lobes subequal, obovate, anterior one larger, with dark stripes or lines of dots running into the tube
Stamens subdidynamous, shorter pair included, longer ones just exserted; filaments linear; anthers with thecae parallel; staminodes 0
Nectary annular
Ovary 2-locular, false septum 0, usually with 2 or 5 ovules per locule; style somewhat compressed, linear, included; stigma of 2 ovate lobes
Fruit indehiscent, woody, longitudinally compressed to discoid, central part slightly to strongly raised, with 2 erect, conical spines on upper face and a hard, narrow wing
Seeds obovate to oblanceolate, compressed, with a groove on edges; testa somewhat crustaceous, almost smooth, usually dark-coloured
Nomenclature:
Dicerocaryum Bojer
Bojer: 268, t. 10 (1835)
Bruce: 421 (1953)
Henderson & Anderson: 296 (1966) (D. senecioides (Klotzsch) Abels)
Ihlenfeldt: 43, t. 5 (1967a)
Ihlenfeldt: 598 (1967b)
Merxmüller & Schreiber: 3 (1968)
Abels: 5 (1975)
Ihlenfeldt: 106 (1988)
Ihlenfeldt: 1063 (1994)
Pretrea J.Gay ex Meisn.
Meisner 1: 298 & 2: 206 (1840)
Stapf: 463 (1904)
Merrill: 355 (1935)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 3, tropical and subtropical Africa
Southern Africa: Species 2, N Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, roughly north of 26°S but extending a little further south, west of Kuruman (Northern Cape); also Swaziland
References:
ABELS, J. 1975. Die Gattungen Ceratotheca Endl. und Dicerocaryum Boj. (Monographie der afrikanischen Pedaliaceae III-IV). Memórias da Sociedade Broteriana 25
BOJER, W. 1835. Descriptiones et icones plantarum rariorum quas in insulis Africae australis detexit anno 1824. Annales des sciences naturelles Botanique sér. 2, 4
BRUCE, E.A. 1953. Notes on African Pedaliaceae. Kew Bulletin 1953
HENDERSON, M. & ANDERSON, J.G. 1966. Common weeds in South Africa. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa 37
IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1967a. Über die Abgrenzung und die natürliche Gliederung der Pedaliaceae R. Br. Mitteilungen aus dem Staatsinstitut für Allgemeine Botanik Hamburg 12
IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1967b. Bemerkungen zur Taxonomie der südwestafrikanischen Pedaliaceae. Mitteilungen der Botanischen Staatssammlung München 6
IHLENFELDT, H.-D. 1994. Phytogeography of Pedaliaceae R.Br. In J.H. Seyani & A.C. Chikuni, Proceedings of the XIIIth Plenary Meeting of AETFAT, Malawi 2
MEISNER, C.F. 1840. Plantarum vascularium genera 1 (Tabulae diagnosticae) & 2 (Commentarius). Libraria Weidmannia, Leipzig
MERRILL, E.D. 1935. A commentary on Loureiro's 'Flora Cochinchinensis'. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 24,2
MERXMÜLLER, H. & SCHREIBER, A. 1968. Pedaliaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 131
STAPF, O. 1904. Pedalineæ. Flora capensis 4,2
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