Drypetes
Source:
SSA
Description:
Trees or shrubs; dioecious, rarely monoecious. Leaves alternate, petiolate, often large; stipules caducous, rarely persistent. Inflorescence usually of axillary fascicles of flowers, sometimes flowers produced on older wood, usually pedicelled. Petals 0. Male flowers: sepals 4 or 5, deeply concave, imbricate, sometimes hairy; stamens 3-12(-50); filaments free; anthers sometimes large, ovate; disc concave, rarely cup-like, central, inside stamens; ovary 0 or rudimentary in middle of disc. Female flowers: calyx as in male; disc annular, cup- or saucer-shaped, sometimes thick and fleshy with papillae on inner surface and irregularly lobed on margin; ovary 1-4-locular, sometimes thick-walled and warty, with 2 ovules in each locule, usually hairy; styles short or absent; stigmas thick, flattened, bifid or entire. Fruit globose, ellipsoid or ovoid, sometimes large, indehiscent; pericarp somewhat fleshy, becoming indurated on drying; endocarp coriaceous, papery or bony. Seeds solitary by abortion, ecarunculate; albumen fleshy; embryo straight, cotyledons broad, flat. x = 10 (high polyploidy).
Distribution:
Species +/- 200, mainly Old World tropics, few in West Indies and South America; 5 in sthn Afr., Northern Province, Mpumalanga to KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape.