Description:

• Herbs, shrublets or shrubs, usually pubescent
• Leaves alternate, simple, variously incised or entire, sometimes with conspicuous glands or extrafloral nectaries; stipules 0 or small
• Flowers bisexual, regular, in racemose or cymose, axillary or terminal inflorescences or solitary, opening in the morning, fading at night; pedicels free or rarely adnate to petiole; bracts small; corolla rotate
• Calyx tubular, 5-dentate or sepals 5 and fused near base, quincuncial
• Petals 5, free, erect or spreading, contorted in bud, usually with claw arising on calyx tube or near its base, sometimes with a ligule or small thin corona on upper part of claw
• Stamens 5, hypogynous or arising on calyx tube; filaments free, of equal or unequal length; anthers bilocular, introrse, with longitudinal slits, basifixed
• Ovary superior, 1-locular, with 3 parietal placentas; styles 3, usually free, slender, often heterostylous; stigmas multipartite; ovules many to few
• Capsule ovoid or siliqua-like (resembling Brassicaceae fruits), 3-valved, with 1- or multi-seriate placentas, dehiscent
• Seeds cylindrical, straight or curved, reticulate or striate, often pitted, on long funicles and enveloped by a white, leaf-like aril

Nomenclature:

• Turneraceae
  • Harvey: 599 (1862)
  • Fernandes: 15 (1975)
  • Obermeyer: 93 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 9, species ± 90, predominantly South American; also in Africa, the Mascarenes and SE Asia
• Southern Africa: Genera 4, species 10

References:

• FERNANDES, R.B. 1975. Turneraceae africanae: Notulae systematicae et taxa nova. Boletim da Sociedade Broteriana 49
• HARVEY, W.H. 1862. Addenda and corrigenda to the second volume. Turneraceae, DC. Flora capensis 2
• OBERMEYER, A.A. 1976. Turneraceae. Flora of southern Africa 22

Resources:

• Key to Turneraceae genera

• Turneraceae genera: