Description:

• Herbs, mostly perennial
• Leaves alternate, opposite or whorled
• Flowers usually in spicate racemes, sometimes in panicles, dirty white, dark red or purple
• Calyx divided almost to base; segments 5 or 6, oblong
• Corolla usually longer than calyx; tube subcylindric or campanulate; lobes longer than tube
• Stamens arising from corolla tube, included or exserted; filaments glabrous; staminodes rarely present
• Ovary superior, globose or ovoid; style cylindric, ± as long as corolla; stigma minutely 3-lobed
• Capsule surrounded by persistent calyx and with persistent style, opening by 5 valves at apex, rarely irregularly dehiscent
• Seed brown, 3-angled
• x = 12 (8, 9, 10, 14, 17) (high polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

• Lysimachia L.
  • Linnaeus: 146 (1753)
  • Pax & Knuth: 256 (1905)
  • Harvey & Wright: 427 (1906)
  • Dyer: 11 (1963)
  • Guillaumet: 1 (1981)
  • Peltier: 4 (1981)
  • Kupicha: 187 (1983)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 150-200, chiefly in Europe, Asia and North America
• Southern Africa: Species 2, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape