genus descriptions: SSTAs

Perennial herbs, shrubs or undershrubs, young branches, petioles, peduncles and pedicels covered with minute rusty hairs. Leaves opposite, usually +/- equal at same node, ovate to broadly ovate, petiolate, with 5-7 longitudinal nerves. Inflorescences of terminal and axillary paniculate cymes. Flowers 5-merous. Calyx: tube/receptacle obovoid, shallowly undulate at margin, covered with very small brown hairs; lobes 0. Petals broadly ovate, +/- oblique, violet or rose. Stamens 10, equal or subequal; anthers linear, straight, with pedoconnective produced into a posterior, thick +/- square appendage and provided with 2 anterior subglobose tubercles. Ovary adnate by septa to inferior half of calyx tube/receptacle, 5-locular, with multi-ovulate placentas; style longer than stamens. Fruit capsular, dehiscing irregularly. Seeds many, curved.

Perennial herbs or shrubs, with sharply 4-angular or -winged stems and branches, hairy or bristly. Leaves opposite, longitudinally 5-7-nerved. Flowers 5-merous, sessile or subsessile, in terminal heads surrounded by leaves and leafy bracts; inner bracts coriaceous, chaffy or membranous. Calyx: tube/receptacle ovoid or ovoid-oblong, glabrous or densely setose in upper half or with 1-6 rings of bristles; lobes persistent, +/- reflexed, ciliate at margin; intersepalar segments 0. Petals mauve, pink or blue-violet rarely white. Stamens 10, subequal; anthers lanceolate, all similar, yellow, pedoconnective short with an anterior 2-lobed or 2-fid appendage at base. Ovary 5-locular, adnate to calyx tube/receptacle all around to above middle. Capsule 5-valved, with fleshy placentas, usually splitting irregularly. Seeds many, cochleate.

Trees of very variable habit. Leaves usually paripinnate, and with an apical gland, mostly crowded at ends of stout branchlets. Flowers unisexual, 4- or 5(6)-merous, in large, much-branched panicles. Calyx small, lobed almost to base; lobes imbricate. Petals 4 or 5(6), slightly contorted, spreading in open flowers. Staminal tube urceolate, bearing 6-8 included anthers or antherodes towards apex and terminated by 8-10 suborbicular, emarginated or irregularly lobed, overlapping appendages alternating with anthers or antherodes. Disc cushion-shaped, surrounding base of ovary and free from staminal tube. Ovary 4 or 5(6)-locular with 2-8 ovules in each locule; style-head discoid with a crenular margin. Fruit a large, pendulous, leathery, subglobose, septifragal capsule, breaking open on hitting ground; columella poorly developed. Seeds +/- 12-20, large, subangular, with a woody but buoyant outer covering.

Shrubs; young branches puberulous, later glabrous. Leaves alternate, simple, shortly petiolate, entire, elliptic, penninerved with one basal pair of nerves; stipules triangular to ensiform, subpersistent. Inflorescences few- to many-flowered axillary or sometimes cauline fascicles surrounded at base by pointed bracts; pedicels slender, articulated at base of flower; pointed bracteoles present on pedicel; bud spherical. Calyx coriaceous with sepals +/- completely fused, bursting irregularly into 2 or 3 valves. Petals 5, concave, hooded, striate outside with 7 longitudinal nerves. Staminal tube membranous, bell-shaped, 5-angular, +/- clearly divided at apex into 10 segments, 5 of which are sterile, reflexed and rounded, alternating with 5 fertile lobes opposite petals and each bearing 3 sessile, 2-thecate anthers. Ovary subcylindric, obscurely 5-lobed, 5-locular, pubescent; ovules in 1 or 2 rows on central placenta; style simple; stigma minute. Fruit an elliptic to subconical loculicidal capsule crowned by persistent calyx and opening by 5 undulate valves. Seeds +/- 2-4 per carpel, +/- ovoid, pubescent, partly covered by an irregularly dentate aril.