Dyschoriste

Dyschoriste is a genus of shrublets, herbs or suffrutices (perennial plants that are slightly woody only at the base) in the Acanthaceae family. The plants are sometimes commonly called snakeherbs. The simple, opposite leaves are usually elliptic with entire margins, rarely scalloped.

The flowers grow solitary from leaf axils or in cymes that bear first flowers centrally, and two opposite lateral branches bearing the later flowers. A flower has two bracteoles behind it, shorter than the regular and persistent calyx. The calyx tube is cylindrical or narrowly bell-shaped and ribbed, longer than the lobes.

The hairy corolla is two-lipped, the upper lip two-lobed, the lower one three-lobed. The lower lip lobes are oblong. The corolla is contorted in bud, its tube longer than the lobes and cylindrical below, bell-shaped above. Flower colour is white, purple, blue or red. The lip wrinkle or fold is indistinct.

The four fertile stamens arise in two unequal pairs from the throat or halfway down the tube. The anthers may be exserted or included. The superior ovary is ellipsoid, consisting of two carpels containing two ovules in each of two locules. The hairy style is unequally bilobed, cylindrical and exserted.

The fruit capsule is cylindrical. The generic name, Dyschoriste, is derived from the Greek words dys- meaning with difficulty or poorly and choristos meaning separated or divisible, referring to the capsule valves that stick together. Four seeds are usually produced from each fruit. They have hygroscopic hairs covering the seed, or only its rim.

There are about 98 Dyschoriste species in the tropical and warmer regions of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Seventeen of them occur in the northern and eastern parts of southern Africa.

The plant in picture is Dyschoriste setigera (Leistner, (E.), 2000; Chumchim, et al, 2015: Phylogeny of Dyschoriste (Acanthaceae). Aliso 33(2), pp 77-89; Wikipedia).