Polysphaeria

Glabrous or hairy shrubs or small trees with supra-axillary branches. Leaves usually thinly coriaceous with a characteristic divaricate venation, usually oblong-elliptic to lanceolate, less often more rounded; stipules triangular, acuminate or aristate with raised midline. Flowers sessile or rarely pedicellate, usually small in sessile or pedunculate bracteate clusters; bracts and bracteoles forming a complicated pattern of primary bracts; secondary bracts often supporting triads of flowers, and bracteoles often several per flower usually joined to form a cup at base of calyx. Calyx: tube campanulate or turbinate; tube of limb cup- or bowl-shaped, obconic or sometimes tubular, occasionally covering corolla in bud, truncate or 4- or 5-toothed, persistent. Corolla: tube narrowly funnel-shaped or cylindric, densely hairy at throat; lobes 4 or 5, strictly contorted, overlapping to the left (as seen in bud), ovate to oblong, acuminate, spreading. Stamens 4 or 5, inserted in corolla tube, filaments very short; anthers linear, fixed at back near base, included or partly exserted, sometimes minutely apiculate. Disc small but evident, fleshy. Ovary 2-locular; ovule solitary in each locule, pendulous; style filiform, exserted, usually shortly pubescent or hairy, with filiform or rarely +/- ellipsoid undivided or slightly to distinctly bifid stigma. Fruits pea-like with rather tough epicarp, 1- or 2-locular, 1- or 2-seeded. Seeds subglobose to plano-convex with striate-sulcate testa and very ruminate endosperm.