Plants shrubs, small trees, or perennial herbs, usually with both normal hairs and stiffer, darker, tubercle-based hairs, the tubercles sometimes persisting. Leaves mostly clustered on short shooots, odd-pinnate; leaflets alternate or opposite, their lower surfaces with a purplish reticulate pattern of tannin deposits between the main lateral veins (best seen on older specimens). Inflorescences spikes, flowers sessile. CAlyces 4-5-lobed, sometimes 2-lipped; receptacles tubular, enclosing the ovaries; corollas yellow, deciduous; stamens united into a sheath by their filaments, the sheath opeening by a slit on the upper side or closed. Pods flat or subterete, breaking transversely int 1-6, 1-seeded indehiscent units.
Chapmannia includes 7 species, one in Somalia, Chapmannia somalensis (not Somaliland), four on Socotra, and two in tropical America.
Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.