Coleonema
Bartl. & H.L.Wendl.Erect shrubs, glabrous or branchlets invested with minute hairs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, simple, with 2 rows of glands on the abaxial surface; margins narrowly winged, translucent. Inflorescences single-flowered, axillary and/or terminal, shortly pedicellate-pedunculate and subtended by several leaf-like bracts reducing toward a pair of equal bracteoles; flowers 5-merous; sepals and petals free, imbricate in bud; stamens 5; anthers gland-tipped; staminodes 5, alternating with stamens; ovary 5-lobed, glabrous; style short, glabrous; stigma capitate. Fruit a 5-partite schizocarp, each segment horned, opening via a ventral valve and explosively shedding the single, black, shining seed.
Eight species endemic to the Cape Province of South Africa. Several species are cultivated, two naturalised in Australia.
