Description:
Small erect shrubs, invariably turning blackish on drying and with distinctly discolorous leaves. Leaves very shortly petiolate, elliptic to lanceolate, rather thick, closely placed, lateral nerves invisible or very obscure; stipule-sheath usually hairy, divided into several subulate fimbriae. Flowers heterostylous, small in many-flowered, dense, terminal corymbs or panicles. Calyx: lobes 4, triangular or lanceolate, often with fimbriae between. Corolla shortly subcylindric, slightly widened above; lobes 4; throat glabrous or sparsely hairy inside. Stamens well exserted in short-styled flowers. Ovary 2-locular; ovules few on peltate placentas; style filiform; stigma lobes subglobose. Capsule depressed hemispherical, produced into a conical beak which splits loculicidally and septicidally into 4 diverging valves. Seeds few, much compressed, elliptic or oblong, sometimes subangular and often slightly winged at both ends or all round, reticulate.
Distribution:
Species 2, very closely allied, upland trop. Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 2, Angola, Zambia, Malawi.
Source:
SSTA
Classification:
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