The genus Jovetia includes one recognized species of erect to spreading or nearly prostrate, low, xerophytic shrubs with developed long stems but the small leaves all borne on short shoots, small persistent stipules, small flowers that are solitary, axillary, 4-merous, and subtended by a pair of fused bracts, short funnelform corollas that are white to yellow-orange with the lobes right-contorted in bud, and berry-like red fruits with generally 2 seeds, one in each locule. Jovetia is known from calcareous rock outcrops in the south of Madagascar, on the Mahafaly plateau.
Guédès described two species of Jovetia: Jovetia humilis with a spreading to prostrate habit, a calyx limb with simple lobing, a yellow-orange corolla with the tube narrowly funnelform, and Jovetia erecta, with an erect habit, a calyx limb with stipels or reduced accessory lobes produced between each pair of lobes, and a more broadly funnelform white corolla. However Leroy (1976) reviewed these species and concluded that the differences between these were all phenotypic variations related to microsite (exposed vs. sheltered), and recognized only one species. He did however name a new variety, Jovetia humilis var. glabra, based on one specimen, Capuron 22556-SF, that is glabrous instead of densely strigillose the stems, stipules, and leaves. Guédès included this same specimen in his circumscription of Jovetia humilis. Subsequently Leroy's variety has been synonymized with Jovetia humilis (Govaerts et al., on-line World Rubiaceae Checklist; Madagascar Catalogue Project), a conclusion that agrees with much of the general taxnomic practices in tropical Rubiaceae.