Annual, creeping, small herbs, covered with stellate hairs and sometimes also glochidiate spines. Leaves opposite, with ± fimbriate stipules and usually long petioles; blade entire, palmate. Umbels simple, axillary, pedunculate, few-flowered. Fruit variable, with stellate hairs and/or glochidiate spines.

Taxonomy. The African Bowlesia glandulosa was earlier placed in the monotypic genus Drusa, distinguished mainly by its distribution from the American genus Bowlesia (see, e.g., Thulin 1999).

Bowlesia incana Ruiz & Pav. 1802 (B. tenera Spreng. 1824). – Lit.: Hickman (1993; ill.). – Plant without spines; leaf-blades usually 5-lobed, with ± deep sinuses. Flowers whitish or with purple tinge. Fruit small, broadly ovoid in outline, smooth and covered with stellate hairs. – [2n=16, 32]

Bowlesia glandulosa (Poir.) Kuntze 1891 (Drusa glandulosa (Poir.) Bornm. 1903; D. oppositifolia DC. 1807, nom. illeg.). S drusa. – Lit.: Thulin (1999, also ill.). – Plant with glochidiate spines (mainly on stem and petioles); leaf-blades 3-lobed, with ± shallow sinuses. Flowers with white petals. Fruit large, dorsally flattened, ± orbicular in outline; mericarps with glochidiate spines along the border and a few stellate hairs on the surface (no fruits in Nordic material). – [2n=16]