Annual or perennial herbs or small shrubs. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite. Calyx lobes (3-)5. Flowers actinomorphic. Corolla ± deeply (3-)5-lobed. Stamens (3-)5. Ovary subinferior to rarely subsuperior,
2-5-locular. Style shorter or longer than the corolla, the upper part with pollen-collecting hairs, glabrous or hairy below, eglandular or with small glands present at or near the base of the 2-5 style lobes. Capsule loculicidal, dehiscing by as many apical valves as there are loculi in the ovary.
Seeds numerous. Derivation of name: after Georg Göran Wahlenberg (1780–1851), Swedish naturalist, geographer, doctor and professor of botany at the University of Uppsala. (Clarke, Charters & Moll-Ed.: 358, 2016). Worldwide: 200 species, more or less cosmopolitan, but especially southern temperate zones Zambia: 20 taxa. |
|