Annual or perennial herbs or sometimes subshrubs, with subterete or quadrangular branches
Leaves opposite, sessile, usually linear, mostly 1-nerved; stipules with 2-several fimbriae or rarely reduced to a simple lobe
Flowers never heterostylous; in terminal corymbs or panicles, rarely solitary; bracts slender or filamentous
Calyx 4(5)-partite; segments ovate-triangular to subulate
Corolla 4(5)-lobed; lobes suberect or spreading, papillose above; cream, shades of brown, white or pinkish mauve; tube slender, cylindric below, slightly expanded towards mouth, with flattened, obtuse hairs within
Stamens included or only anther tips exserted; anthers sessile
Ovary 2-locular, with many ovules in each locule, attached to shield-like, shortly-stalked placentas attached below middle of central partition; style usually much shorter, but sometimes only slightly lower than anthers; stigma simple or bifid
Capsule bilocular, globose or ellipsoid, scarcely beaked
Seeds many, angular, somewhat alveolate
x = 9 (polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Kohautia Cham. & Schltdl.
Chamisso & Schlechtendal: 156 (1829)
Sonder: 8 (1865) under Hedyotis
Phillips: 722 (1951) under Oldenlandia
Bremekamp: 56 (1952)
Verdcourt: 228 (1976)
Mantell: 85 (1989)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 60, Old World tropics
Southern Africa: Species 15, absent from Western Cape
References:
BREMEKAMP. C.E.B. 1952. The African Oldenlandieae s.l. Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, afdeling Natuurkunde, sect. 2. 48, 2
CHAMISSO A. DE & SCHLECHTENDAL, D. DE. 1829. De plantis in expeditione speculatoria romanzoffiana observatis (Rubiaceae). Linnaea 4
MANTELL, D. 1989. Kohautia. Flora zambesiaca 5,1
PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
SONDER, O.W. 1865. Rubiaceae. Flora capensis 3
VERDCOURT, B. 1976. Flora of tropical East Africa. Rubiaceae (part 1)
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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