Description:

• Perennial herbs, pilose
• Leaves opposite, shortly petiolate or sessile, blade elliptic to broadly elliptic or oblanceolate, entire to undulate margin, glabrous or pubescent
• Capitula discoid, with many florets, solitary at ends of branches; peduncles long, usually thickened towards apex
• Involucre broadly turbinate-campanulate; bracts in 3-5 rows; outer row ± broadly ovate, ± striate; inner row longer and narrower
• Receptacle convex, epaleate
• Florets bisexual
• Corolla orange or reddish orange; tube widening gradually from base, deeply 5-lobed at apex
• Anthers with base obtuse; appendage narrowly ovate, exserted
• Style glabrous; branches obtuse or truncate, papillate outside
• Cypselas narrowly obpyramidal to narrowly turbinate, longitudinally ribbed, sometimes 4- or 5-angled, glabrous, hirsute or strigose
• Pappus of many setae, in 1 row, terete, uncinate or sometimes with few straight setae, usually with narrow membranous, ± fimbriate lateral wings in lower third

Nomenclature:

• Hypericophyllum Steetz
  • Steetz: 498 (1864)
  • Pope: 104 (1975)
  • Karis & Ryding: 539 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 7, tropical Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Hypericophyllum elatum (O.Hoffm.) N.E.Br., Northern Province