Scottellia

Trees up to 30 m high; trunk straight, slightly fluted; branchlets glabrous. Leaves alternate, persistent, simple, entire to crenulate, petiolate, cuneate at base, acuminate at apex, coriaceous, glabrous, with 5-8 pairs of secondary nerves; petiole thickened at both ends; stipules 0. Inflorescences : racemes grouped in pseudopanicles, axillary; rachis slender to subfiliform; bracts minute, caducous. Flowers bisexual. Sepals 5, elliptic-ovate, ciliate. Petals 5, similar in size to sepals but usually thinner, oblong-ovate to elliptic-obovate, each with a basal scale-like hairy appendage. Stamens 5, alternating with petals; filaments linear-subulate, +/-twice as long as anthers; anthers acutely triangular in outline, deeply bifid up to basal attachment of filament, longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary substipitate, glabrous, 1-locular with 3 pluri-ovulate parietal placentas; style short, shortly trifid at apex. Fruit a subglobose capsule splitting into 3 eventually +/-reflexed valves; pericarp coriaceous to almost woody, pustular or verruculose outside, smooth or wrinkled inside. Seeds 1 or 2(3), subglobose-angular, smooth, covered by a thin bright red or orange-red arillus.