Wahlenbergia

Wahlenbergia is a genus of annual and perennial herbs as well as shrublets in the Campanulaceae or bellflower family.

The leaves are mostly alternate, rarely opposite. The annuals often having wide leaves, the shrublets small, stiff ones. Leaf margins are sometimes toothed or lobed.

The flowers grow solitary from leaf axils and stem-tips, sometimes in panicles. The calyx is mostly five-lobed and shorter than the corolla, the sepals linear or tapering to a point in an awl-shape. The corolla is mostly five-lobed to halfway, the tube base bell- or funnel-shaped. Flower colour is often white or blue.

There are five included stamens with linear, free filaments. The ovary is mostly inferior or halfway so and nearly globose in shape. It comprises from two to five locules, each containing many ovules. The style is cylindrical, sometimes with a cone-shaped base and two to five glandular, usually recurved lobes.

The fruit is a capsule dehiscing per locule.

There are about 260 Wahlenbergia species, mainly in the southern hemisphere and 150 of which occur in southern Africa. The shrubby species are often heavily browsed by game and stock.

The plant in picture is Wahlenbergia nodosa (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2007).