Source:
SSA
Description:
Spreading, erect or subscandent herb or soft shrub. Leaves sometimes ternate, ovate-lanceolate to ovate-elliptic, margin crenate-dentate. Inflorescences terminal, lax panicles; verticils 2-4-flowered; bracts minute, linear-lanceolate; pedicels articulate at top. Calyx subequally 5-toothed; teeth narrow; tube cylindric, becoming globose and fleshy in fruit. Corolla bilabiate, white or cream; tube straight, subcylindric; upper lip short, erect, 3-lobed; lower lip patent. Stamens didynamous, only lower 2 fertile, declinate, arising near throat; upper pair minute, arising in throat, included. Disc produced on one or two sides, one lobe often exceeding ovary. Style exserted, shortly 2-lobed. Fruit subglobose, berry-like; orange-coloured, usually enclosing 2 or 3 nutlets; nutlets ellipsoid-orbicular, compressed. x = 6 (polyploidy).
Distribution:
Monotypic: Hoslundia opposita Vahl is widespread throughout tropical Africa; in sthn Afr. it occurs in N Namibia and Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and N KwaZulu-Natal.
Classification:
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