Description:

• Erect, branched shrubs
• Leaves closely set and overlapping, whorled, narrow, linear, serrated in upper half, leathery
• Flowers many, axillary, solitary or in few-flowered cymes, crowded among upper leaves
• Calyx 3-partite; lobes ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, ribbed, valvate, glandular-pubescent; posterior lobe broader than others, trifid; anterior lobes entire
• Corolla 5-lobed; bilabiate, densely viscid-pilose outside; tube wide, with pouch on anterior side lined with stalked, oil-secreting trichomes; posterior lip bilobed, exterior in bud; anterior lip slightly shorter and deeply 3-lobed; lobes obtuse, ± as long as tube
• Stamens 2, included, lying along upper side of pouch with stigma; filaments rather thick, terete, glabrous, arising at base of corolla tube; anthers kidney-shaped, bithecate; thecae divaricate, confluent at apex; staminodes 2 or 3, setiform
• Nectary 0
• Ovary bilocular, ovoid, densely glandular; ovules many; style rather thick, linear, included; stigma simple
• Fruit an ovoid, subtetragonal, acute, septicidal capsule; valves bifid
• Seeds many, ovoid-oblong, truncate; testa reticulate, membranous

Nomenclature:

• Ixianthes Benth.
  • Bentham: 54 (1836)
  • Hiern: 216, (1904)
  • Steiner: 7 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Monotypic: Ixianthes retzioides Benth., Western Cape, central Cederberg south to Tulbagh; usually rooted in water, occasionally submerged
  • Pollinated by oil-collecting bees