Hydrolea L.

Herbs or subshrubs, sometimes spiny, glabrous or glandular-pubescent. Leaves alternate, entire. Flowers in peduncled bracteate cymes, forming panicles or in false racemes or axillary clusters. Calyx lobes 5, imbricate at the base, open above; corolla often blue, rotate-campanulate, 5-lobed. Ovary 2(3)-locular with fleshy placentas adnate to the septa. Fruit a capsule globose, ellipsoid or ovoid, thin. Seeds numerous, minute.

Worldwide: 20 species, seven of which occur in tropical and subtropical Africa.

Zambia: 1 taxon.