Description:

• Single-stemmed reseeders or multistemmed, lignotuberous shrubs or shrublets
• Leaves in dense whorls or pseudowhorls of 3-7, mostly ericoid, linear, with recurved margins; stipules 0
• Flowers bisexual, irregular or regular, usually in sessile, terminal, globose to cylindric spikes, or on few-flowered short, axillary branchlets; each flower subtended by 2 opposite leaf-like bracts or prophylls
• Calyx of 5 sepals, usually fused and tubular basally with 5 free lobes; occasionally completely free
• Corolla tubular, with 4 or 5 free lobes, regular or strongly irregular and bilabiate; throat frequently with a dense ring of pubescence
• Stamens usually 4 (posterior stamen 0), or 5, arising between corolla lobes; filaments short, free; anthers 2-thecous, basi- to dorsifixed; thecae usually confluent at apex, parallel or often diverging below, longitudinally dehiscent
• Disc small to obsolete
• Ovary superior, usually slightly compressed, with 2 locules; often becoming 1-locular by abortion or loss of septum; ovules usually 1 in each locule, either basal or pendulous, or 2(3) in each locule, ascending and pendulous (Retzia)
• Style terminal on ovary, filiform, erect, minutely bilobed
• Fruit a dehiscent capsule
• Seeds ovoid, usually reticulate

Classification Notes:

• Retzia Thunb. was formerly often placed in the monotypic family Retziaceae (Dyer 1975, Dahlgren 1988, Takhtajan 1997)

Nomenclature:

• Stilbaceae
  • Pearson: 181 (1901)
  • Cronquist: 867 (1981)
  • Rourke: 9 (2000)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Genera 6, species ± 14, endemic to the SW Western Cape

References:

• CRONQUIST, A. 1981. An integrated system of classification of flowering plants. Columbia University Press, New York
• DAHLGREN, R. 1988. Retziaceae, Stilbaceae. In R. Dahlgren & A.E. van Wyk, Structures and relationships of families endemic to or centered in southern Africa. Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden 25
• DYER, R.A. 1975. The genera of southern African flowering plants, Vol. 1. Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria
• PEARSON, H.H.W. 1901. Verbenaceae. Flora capensis 5, 1
• ROURKE, J.P. 2000. A review of generic concepts in the Stilbaceae. Bothalia 30
• TAKHTAJAN, A. 1997. Diversity and classification of flowering plants. Columbia University Press, New York
• THORNE, R.F. 1992. An updated phylogenetic classification of the flowering plants. Aliso 13, 2

Resources:

• Classification of Stilbaceae
• Key to Stilbaceae genera

• Stilbaceae genera: