7522.010 Melanospermum Hilliard

Small annual or perennial herbs; stems leafy, hairy. Leaves opposite, occasionally alternate below inflorescence. Flowers usually with short stems, axillary, in racemes or heads, always erect. Bracts sometimes leaf-like. Calyx with two lobes, tube shorter than anterior lip which is deeply divided. Corolla with 2 lobes with a yellow orange patch on posterior lobes. Fruit a capsule. Seeds black on a round depressed cushion with irregular margins.

Worldwide: 6 species in southern Africa, not in Lesotho or the Cape, also in western Zimbabwe.

Botswana: 1 taxon.