Description:

• Dwarf herbaceous perennials; aerial stems succulent, with closely packed leaves obscuring internodes; roots mostly thick, woody or caudiciform with simple or branching stems
• Leaves alternate, often minute, less than twice as wide as thick; green leaves not or only slightly exposed, hidden beneath imbricate papery, often scarious scales, making shoots appear white
• Inflorescences terminal
• Flowers 1 or few at stem tips, surrounded by scaly bracts, on short pedicels, opening for a very short time only, sometimes cleistogamous, white or rarely pink or carmine
• Sepals 2, shortly connate at base, subpersistent
• Petals 5, free
• Stamens 5-many, adnate to petals at base; filaments white; anthers yellow
• Ovary superior; ovules many; style thread-like; stigma entire or 3-lobed
• Fruit an elongated 3- or 4-valved capsule
• Seeds many, winged or with minute blunt protuberances

Classification Notes:

• Anacampseros and Avonia belong to the tribe Anacampseroteae Nyananyo ex Rowley
  

Nomenclature:

• Avonia (E.Mey. ex Fenzl) Rowley
  • Rowley: 105 (1994)
  • Steffens: 12 (1995)
  • Rowley: 49 (1995)
• Anacampseros L. subgenus Avonia E.Mey. ex Fenzl
  • Fenzl: 295 (1839)
• Anacampseros L. section Avonia (E.Mey. ex Fenzl) Gerbaulet
  • Gerbaulet: 543 (1992)
  • Rodgerson: 2 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 11, Somalia, southern Africa, Zimbabwe
• Southern Africa: Species 10, highest concentration of species in Namibia and Northern Cape, but extends also to Botswana, Northern Province, Free State, Western and Eastern Cape