Monsonia L.

Annual or perennial herbs (sometimes with annual shoots arising from a woody basal region), or suffrutices, erect or decumbent, rarely acaulescent, variously pubescent, usually glandular. Leaves opposite or alternate, petiolate, serrate, dentate or crenate, sometimes lobed or dissected; stipules filiform to subulate or rarely spinescent. Inflorescence usually a 2-several-flowered simple umbel, occasionally the flowers solitary. Flowers actinomorphic, 5-merous; pedicels often sharply bent when in fruit, bracteate. Sepals imbricate, apiculate with membranous margins. Petals obovate, often with truncate or lobed apex. Stamens 15, all fertile, connate at the base, in 5 bundles of 3 filaments each, the central filament of each triad being longer. Extrastaminal glands 5, adnate to the base of the longer filaments. Ovary 5-lobed and 5-locular, rostrate; loculi 2-ovulate; style absent or if present rather indistinct; stigmas 5, clavate or filiform. Fruit a rostrate schizocarp; mericarps rostrate, 1-seeded, oblique, truncate at the apex of the basal portion and tapering towards the base, hirsute; rostrum persistent, helically twisting when ripe, plumose on the inside. Seeds ± oblong-obovoid, exalbuminous; embryo curved.