Description:

• Dwarf shrubs, rarely perennial herbs, bisexual, female, or occasionally male, bisexual + female, or bisexual + male
• Leaves decussate or (rarely) in whorls of 3, often ericoid, ± pungent, acuminate or acute at apex, (sub)sessile; stipular sheaths cup- or funnel-shaped, bearing minute setae or (less commonly) longer bristles on either side
• Inflorescence frequently very inconspicuous, made up of flowers paired or solitary at nodes, or of mostly few-flowered cymes
• Flowers bisexual, female or occasionally male
• Calyx 3-5(6)-lobed, lobes leaf-like, often unequal in size
• Corolla 4-7-lobed; lobes linear to ± lanceolate, hooded, spreading to spreading-recurved (bisexual, male) or ± erect (female); tube cylindrical to ± narrowly funnel-shaped; in bisexual and male flowers corolla much larger than in female flowers
• Stamens 4-7; anthers purplish red to dark purplish brown, exserted, dangling on long, slender, filiform filaments
• Ovary 2-carpellate with 1(2) fertile, erect ovule(s); style 0; stigmas 1(2), long-exserted, hairy, purplish red, greenish grey, greyish or whitish
• Fruit 1(2)-seeded, crowned by persistent calyx lobes; exocarp dehiscing into valves, releasing endocarp with enclosed seed
• x = 11 (aneuploids)

Nomenclature:

• Carpacoce Sond.
  • Sonder: 32 (1865)
  • Hooker: 141 (1873)
  • Schumann: 130 (1891)
  • Phillips: 736 (1951)
  • Puff: 52 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 7, endemic in the Western Cape, only one extends to the Bathurst and Albany Districts in the Eastern Cape