The tribe Massonieae with about 150 species in 15 genera is subendemic to southern Africa (Namibia, South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland) radiating with two genera into tropical East Africa and one of them to S Asia. Two of these 15 genera, Periboea and Resnova, are formally resuscitated in the present paper. Four genera are known from Namibia, to which Namophila urotepala gen. et sp. novae is added.
The hitherto green‐flowered genus Whiteheadia is no longer monotypic: the white‐flowered W. etesionamibensis with distinctly longer perigon‐segments and with many other minor differences is described from several localities in Diamond Sperrgebiet no. 1 and surrounding areas eastwards to the Hunsberge.
The only Massonia known from Namibia (MERXMÜLLER & ROESSLER 1973) is not M. echinata but a species of its own which deserves a new combination: M. sessiliflora; it also occurs in the Cape, namely on the southern bank of the Orange River.
Massonieae as a whole are subdivided into three subtribes. A key to the subtribes, keys to the genera within the subtribes, and in several genera with important changes also keys to the species are provided. Fourteen species of southern Africa are resucitated from synonymy: in Resnova (4, incl. one comb. nova), Drimiopsis (1), Massonia (6, incl. the above species from Namibia), Periboea (1, a new combination), and Polyxena (2); as two accepted species proved to be younger synonyms (Drimiopsis maxima and Neobakeria heterandra) the increase in species by reinstatements is reduced to 12. Seven new species are proposed in addition to the two Namibian ones: in Periboea (P. oliveri), in Polyxena (P. calcicola). and in Drimiopsis (D. comptonii, D. davidsoniae, D. pusilla, D. reilleyana, and D. stolonissima). For tropical East Africa three new combinations (altogether six) are proposed, Ledebouria hildebrandtii. L confertiflora, and Drimiopsis fischeri which are transferred from other genera.
