Combretum

Trees, shrubs, shrublets or woody climbers, very rarely subherbaceous; lepidote or with microscopic and sometimes macroscopic stalked glands. Leaves opposite, or sometimes in whorls of 3 or 4, or rarely alternate, usually petiolate (rarely subsessile), almost always entire; petiole sometimes persisting (especially in climbers) forming a +/- hooked spine. Flowers bisexual, regular, or slightly irregular, 4- or 5-merous, in elongated or subcapitate axillary or extra-axillary spikes or racemes or in terminal or terminal and axillary, often leafy panicles. Receptacle usually clearly divided into a lower part and an upper part which varies from patelliform to infundibuliform and is itself sometimes visibly differentiated into a lower part containing the disc (when present) and an often more expanded upper part. Sepals: lobes 4 or 5 (rarely more), deltate to +/- subulate or filiform, sometimes scarcely developed. Petals usually 4 or 5 (rarely absent, in aberrant specimens and up to 7 in occasional flowers), small and inconspicuous to showy and exceeding the sepals, of various colours. Stamens twice as many as petals, inserted in 1 or more, usually 2, series inside upper receptacle and usually exserted. Disc glabrous or hairy, with or without a free margin, sometimes inconspicuous or absent. Style free (in sthn Afr. species); stigma sometimes +/- expanded. Ovary completely inferior. Fruit 4- or 5-winged, ridged or angled, sessile or stipitate, indehiscent or rarely tardily dehiscent; pericarp usually thin and papery, sometimes leathery, more rarely fleshy. Seeds: cotyledons various. x = 13 (11, 12, 14) (high polyploidy).