Withania
Source:
SSA
Description:
Hoary herbs and subshrubs, sparsely pubescent to glabrescent. Leaves entire or slightly sinuate. Flowers small, usually fascicled, subsessile or shortly pedicellate. Calyx campanulate, 5- or 6-toothed, enlarged and inflated in fruit. Corolla narrowly campanulate, 3-6-fid; lobes valvate. Stamens arising near corolla base; filaments slightly flattened; anthers erect, thecae parallel, dehiscing longitudinally. Disc annular, crenulate or 0. Ovary 2-locular; style filiform; stigma shortly and widely 2-lamellate or subglobose; ovules many. Fruit a globose berry, shorter than enlarged calyx. Seeds compressed; embryo near margin, incurved or spiral, cotyledons semiterete. x = 12 (polyploidy).
Distribution:
Species +/- 10, Old World; 1, Withania somnifera (L.) Dun., widespread in sthn Afr.