Small shrubs or suffrutices. Leaves opposite. Flowers usually in cymes, or solitary and axillary, or in terminal spikes or heads with reduced leaves; bracts and bracteoles sometimes spiny. Calyx 4-partite; segments unequal, leaf-like or membranous, sometimes spiny, the two outer enclosing the inner. Corolla ± actinomorphic, 4-5-lobed or ± 2-lipped, with a tubular base; lobes obovate, sometimes unequal. Stamens 2 or 4, not didynamous. Ovary 2-locular with 2 ovules per loculus. Capsule solid in upper part; seeds flat with hygroscopic hairs. Derivation of name: After Jacques Barrelier (1606-1673), a Dominican monk and French botanist Worldwide: 250 species in the tropics Zimbabwe: 7 cultivated taxa. Insects associated with this genus:
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No image of a cultivated species but there is an image of a native or naturalised species |
| Species | Content |
| crassa C.B. Clarke subsp. crassa | Description, Image |
| cristata L. | Image |
| elegans C.B. Clarke subsp. orientalis I.Darbysh. | Description, Image |
| mackenii Hook.f. | Description, Image |
| obtusa Nees | |
| repens Nees | Description, Image |
| rotundifolia Oberm. |