Mildbraedia

Dioecious shrubs or small trees; indumentum stellate, sometimes also simple. Leaves alternate, stipulate, long-petiolate, simple, entire or sometimes (in west and central Africa) deeply 2-3-lobed, subentire to repand-dentate, palminerved; stipules subulate, deciduous. Inflorescence s axillary or supra-axillary, solitary, pedunculate, simply racemose or with flowers in racemes of 1-flowered (female inflorescences) or many-flowered (male inflorescences) cymes; bracts resembling stipules. Male flowers : calyx deeply 5(6)-lobed, or sepals free, imbricate; petals 5(6), free, imbricate; disc glands 5, free, fleshy, opposite sepals; stamens 10-25, outer ones +/- free, inner ones united into a column, anthers small, introrse, dorsifixed, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode absent. Female flowers : sepals and petals resembling those of male flowers, but slightly larger; disc hypogynous, annular, shallowly 5-lobed; ovary 3-locular, with 1 ovule per locule; styles 3, slightly connate at base, deeply bifid to bipartite, spreading. Fruit 3-lobed, dehiscing septicidally into 3 bivalved cocci; endocarp thinly woody; columella persistent. Seed s ovoid-subglobose; testa crustaceous, smooth, somewhat shiny, mottled; caruncle foliaceous, appressed.