Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs; stems decumbent or erect, often arising from a basal leaf rosette
• Leaves radical and cauline, alternate, circular, lobed, digitate or palmately partite; stipules foliaceous or membranous, ± adnate to base of petiole
• Inflorescences axillary, few- to many-flowered corymbs, or sometimes in lax cymes, or flowers solitary, ebracteate, exceeding or ± hidden within stipules
• Flowers bisexual, small, greenish
• Calyx: tube urceolate, persistent, constricted at throat, 4- or 5-bracteolate; lobes 8-l0 in 2 rows; outer epicalyx smaller, inner valvate
• Petals 0
• Stamens 1-4, inserted on mouth of calyx tube, alternating with calyx lobes
• Disc with thickened margin nearly closing calyx tube
• Gynoecium of 1-20 free carpels, sessile or subsessile, inserted at base of calyx tube; ovules solitary in each carpel, basal, pendulous; styles basal or ventral; stigma capitate
• Fruit of 1 or 2 achenes included within membranous calyx tube

Nomenclature:

• Alchemilla L.
  • Linnaeus: 123 (1953)
  • Linnaeus: 58 (1754)
  • Jussieu: 337 (1789)
  • Kunth: 219 (1823)
  • Candolle: 589 (1825)
  • Endlicher: 1243 (1840)
  • Harvey: 291 (1862)
  • Hooker: 621 (1865)
  • Focke: 43 (1894)
  • Engler: 127 (1912)
  • Burtt Davy: 318 (1932)
  • Hauman & Balle: 1 (1936)
  • Rothmaler: 11123 (1937)
  • Levyns: 443 (1950)
  • Graham: 2 (1960)
  • Mendes: 29 (1978)
  • Hedberg: 575 (1986)
  • Hedberg: 37 (1989)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 250, mostly in temperate areas and on tropical mountains, in South America, also in Africa, India and Australia
• Southern Africa: Species 16, mainly eastern summer-rainfall regions, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Western and Eastern Cape