3925.000 Monsonia L.

Annual or perennial herbs or suffrutices. Leaves alternate or opposite, simple or sometimes lobed or dissected. Flowers actinomorphic, in a 1-3-flowered pseudumbel. Sepals and petals 5. Stamens 15, all fertile, in 5 bundles of 3 filaments each, the central filament of each triad the longer. Extrastaminal glands present, 5, adnate to the base of the longer central filaments. Ovary 5-locular. Beak of mericarp persistent, helically twisting when ripe, plumose on the inside.

Derivation of name: Named after Lady Anne Monson, great granddaughter of Charles II of England, who collected plants in India and South Africa with Thunberg and Masson.

Worldwide: 25 species in Africa, Madagascar and SW Asia

Caprivi: 1 taxon.