T. Eriksson (2006) Blepharispermum Flora of Somalia 3: 54-543
Plants shrubs or small trees, erect or scrambling, mostly deciduous. Leaves alternate or clistered on short shoots, simple, basally 3-veined. Inflorescences compound, aggregations of capitula in ovoid to round heads, these solitary or several ogether in dichasial synflorescences; capitula (primary heads) laterally flattened; each subtended by a single bract and 2 marginal, opposite phyllaries subending 1 female flower and 2 (or 4) male flowers subtended by 1 palea (receptacular bract),sometimes with an additional pair of narrow lateral paleae; receptacles minute, wartlike; paleae conduplicate, obtuse, more or less 3-lobed; subtending bracts green, acuminate to truncate, bracts of basal capitula wider and flatter than those of apical capitula. Functionally male florets:corollas 5-lobed, white to yellow or greenish; anthers tailed a the base; achenes imperfect, irregularly obconic; pappus absent or of scales. Female florets: corollas cylindrical; achenes black, flattened dorsiventrally, obcprdate or or obovate to elliptical in outline, with attenuate bases and a short apical neck, with twin hairs along the lateral margins and, in some on a lateral ridge on the flat side; pappus of scales, with longer lateral scales.
Blepharispermum includes 15 species, 13 native to Africa (with one extending into Yemen), one in Oman and Yemen and one in southen India and Sri Lanka.
