Description:

• Annuals, perennials, shrublets or shrubs
• Leaves alternate and/or opposite, elliptic, ovate or linear, sessile or petiolate; stipules small, subulate or ovate, usually persistent, margin serrate to subentire, teeth gland-tipped
• Flowers irregular, solitary, axillary, rarely massed in terminal inflorescences, pendulous, persistent; pedicels articulated, 2 bracteoles opposite or subopposite at or below articulation
• Sepals free, more or less equal, not produced below
• Petals unequal, the anterior much larger than other 4, with or without a basal pouch, clawed in the middle, expanded above into a spathulate or broad lamina; the other 4 somewhat longer than sepals
• Stamens 5, free or connate at base, similar or 2(4) anterior ones each with a recurved, caudate, nectariferous spur projected into pouch of anterior petal; anthers connivent with connective produced above, petaloid
• Ovary with 3 parietal placentas, 3-many ovules; style terete, short or long, straight or curved
• Capsule with 3 elastic valves
• Seeds broadly fusiform or ovoid-globose, apex discoid, raphe distinct or indistinct, aril usually prominent; testa striate, punctate or smooth, hygroscopic, swelling to form a glutinous covering when wetted
• x = 4 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Hybanthus Jacq.
  • Jacquin: 2 (1760) name conserved
  • Robson: 164 (1958)
  • Robson: 254 (1960)
  • Obermeyer: 46 (1976)
• Ionidium Vent.
  • Ventenat: sub t. 27 (1803)
  • Sonder: 74 (1860)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 100, distributed in tropical and subtropical regions, predominantly in South and Central America
• Southern Africa: Species 4, 2 of these endemic: Hybanthus densifolius Engl. confined to the Kalahari region, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West and Northern Cape, and H. capensis (Thunb.) Engl. in the Northern Province and Mpumalanga and southwards along the coast to KwaZulu-Natal, and the Uitenhage District in the Eastern Cape