8489.000 Rubia L.

Perennial herbs, creeping or climbing. Stems 4-angled, brittle. Stems, leaf margins and petioles with recurved prickles, the whole plant tending to cling to clothing. Stipules similar to the leaves. Leaves (and leaf-like stipules) in whorls of 4-8, petiolate. Flowers in axillary or terminal cymes, bisexual, usually 5-merous. Calyx reduced to a rim; teeth 0, not enclosed in an involucre. Corolla rotate to ± campanulate, greenish to yellow. Ovary 2-locular with 1 ovule per loculus. Fruit fleshy, glabrous, consisting of two round, 1-seeded mericarps.

Derivation of name: A name in Pliny for madder

Worldwide: 60 species in the Mediterranean, Africa, temperate Asia and America

Botswana: 1 taxon.