Description: Annual or perennial herbs and shrubs, glabrous to variously hairy.
Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, entire to deeply lobed, flat.
Heads pedunculate, terminal in lax panicles or solitary; involucral bracts 1–4-seriate, ± equal, free, herbaceous with scarious margins; receptacle flat to convex, naked, pitted. Ray florets female, 1-seriate, ligulate, fertile; style filiform with short obtuse branches, glabrous. Disc florets bisexual, sterile, 5-merous; anthers sagittate at the base with terminal appendages; style branches short, papillose, with ring of hairs below division.
Ray achenes variously winged, beaked or sculptured, glabrous; pappus absent. Disc achenes abortive.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 67 species, mostly southern Africa. Australia: 2 species (naturalized), N.S.W., Vic., S.A., W.A.
Text by J. A. Scott & D. W. Hardin
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Ligules yellow to orange, 3–4 mm long; western parts of the state | Osteospermum spinescens |
| Ligules white, lower surface blue or violet, 15–30 mm long; grows in the Sydney area | Osteospermum ecklonis |
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