Like in almost all Asteraceae, the individual flowers are 5-merous, small, and clustered in typical heads, which are surrounded by an involucre of between two and four whorls of bracts.

[2] Aster tenellus, that was figured by the early English botanist Leonard Plukenet in 1692, was the first species recorded that is now included in the genus Felicia (as F. tenella).

This was followed in 1700 by Aster fruticosus, again by Plukenet, repeated by Caspar Commelin in 1701, a species now called Felicia fruticosa.

Such names published before 1753, the year that was chosen as a starting point for the binomial nomenclature proposed by Carl Linnaeus, are not valid however.

In 1761, John Hill erected the genus Coelestina widely considered a later synonym of Ageratum, but the plant that was illustrated most likely is the same species as F. amelloides.

In 1763, French botanist Michel Adanson described a new genus, Detris, without mentioning a species, but apparently having F. amelloides in mind.

A year later, Dutch botanist Pieter Burman the Younger added Aster aethiopicus (now F. aethiopica).

This is followed by Aster cymbalariae (William Aiton, 1789), Leysseria ovata and Pteronia echinata (Carl Peter Thunberg, 1800 and 1823), Aster filifolius (Étienne Pierre Ventenat, 1804), and Cineraria bergeriana (Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel, 1826), now F. cymbalariae, F. ovata, F. echinata, F. filifolius and F.

[2] Because of the extensive collecting in the Cape Region by Drège, Ecklon and Zeyher, during the next decade the number of known species expanded rapidly.

In 1832, Christian Friedrich Lessing moved most species Cassini distributed over his new genera back to Aster, although he assigned Cineraria bergerana to Elphegea, and created the new combinations Diplopappus fruticosa and D. filifolia.

Consecutive authors can roughly be divided in lumpers that brought together many species in Aster, and splitters that proposed narrow taxa, and both groups eventually converged on Felicia in its current circumscription.

Jürke Grau revised the genus in 1973 and described seventeen new species (F. alba, F. caespitosa, F. canaliculata, F. clavipilosa, F. comptonii, F. joubertinae, F. merxmuellerii, F. microcephala, F. monocephala, F. nigrescens, F. nordenstamii, F. oleosa, F. stenophylla and F. tsitsikamae), alongside eight new subspecies.

[7] The genus is presumed to be named in honor of Fortunato Bartolomeo de Felice, an Italian-Swiss scientist.

Divergent base chromosome numbers occur in the derived section Neodetris, with eight (2n=16) in F. amoena and F. elongata, six (2n=12) in F. minima and five (2n=10) in F. heterophylla, F. merxmuelleri and F. namaquana.

Two related species in the section Neodetris growing on vertical rock faces have a pendulous habit: F. petiolata and F. flanaganii.

Vegetative reproduction is rare, but rhizomes occur in F. tenella, F. wrightii, F. amoena and more or less in F. uliginosa.

A special type of vegetative reproduction can be found in F. fascicularis that has branches, which produce roots when in contact with soil.

Margins are often more hairy than the rest of the surface, which generally has a cartilageous seam or carries fine stiff bristle-like teeth.

[2] Few annual species have whitish to dark blue discs such as F. heterophylla, F. josephinae, and a form of F. amoena subsp.

The tip of the pappus hair is wider in F. echinata and species in the section Lignofelicia, but mostly ends pointy.

In fresh plants, the pappus is mostly white to bone-colored, sometimes yellowish, yellow-brown in F. dentata, although in herbarium specimens stronger colors may develop such as fox-red in F. burkei.

They are ovate to elliptic, flattened, have two extending vascular bundles and are often covered in non-glandular hairs, characters that set Felicia apart from related genera, like Aster.

When dry, there is a bend joint between the foot and the shaft so that it points up and the hair is more or less pressed against the cypsela.

[2] Species assigned to the section Dracontium are erect perennial herbs, with large leaves in a rosette at ground level and smaller bracts along a not or rarely shyly branched stem that carries one to four large heads with blue ligulate florets and yellow disc florets that are encircled by an involucre consisting of three worls of approximately equal sized bracts.

[2] The taxa in the section Felicia may be woody shrublets or annual herb, nearly always with fully alternately set, thin to succulent, mostly narrow, variably hairy leaves, and many to few heads, always with ligulate florets, that are purple to white or seldom yellow, and yellow disc florets that may turn reddish when aging, each head encircled by an involucre of three to four worls of overlapping bracts with resin ducts, the outer bracts clearly smaller.

Some are sand dune specialists, such as F. amelloides and F. amoena, while others prefer to grow on rocky substrate, like F. petiolata and others in the section Neodetris.

The East African annuals can be found in Miombo woodland, while a few, such as F. uliginosa, strongly associate with wet habitats.

Yellow flower crab spiders sometimes use the central disc of the heads, where they are well camouflaged, and wait for insects to wander into their grasp.

Usually, nearly all florets set seed, the involucre will open outward when ripe, and the wind will carry away the easily detaching cypselas, thanks to the hairy pappus.