Plants annual or perennial herbs; branches alternate. Leaves alternate, entire. Inflorescences long-peduuncalate, spikelike, bracteate racemes; bracts subtending subsessile partial inflorescences consisting of 2-3 fertile flowers, the outer (1-)2 subtended by a bracteolate sterile flower of 2 laterally emergent, curved accrescent, hornlike procees and the other (when present) with 2 bracteoles. Tepals (4-)5, the outer pairs firm and veined, the inner 3 delicate and hyaline; stamens (4-)5, free or very shortly fused by a basal mebrane; pseudostaminodes absent; ovaries with 1 ovule each, compressed, with form rims aling the major axis; styles slender, with 2 stigmas. Fruits of 1-3 capsules enclosed in the developing mass of processes, receptacles, and pedicels, each partial inflorescence becoming indurate, spikey, and gallike, containing 1-3 seeds in the compressed capsules and falling as a unit.
Neocentema includes 2 species, one in Somaliland and Somalia, the other in Tanzania. The species in Somaliland and Somalia is Neocentema robecchii.
Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.