Source:
SSA
Synonym(s):
Tricalysia A.Rich. ex DC. in part.
Description:
Shrubs or sometimes small trees. Leaves petiolate; usually with domatia as small tufts of hairs; bacterial nodules often present; stipules sheathing, overtopped by 2 awns, with silky hairs and colleters inside. Flowers subtended by 2-4 bracteolar cups, each with 2 unequal pairs of awns; 1 or more flowers opposite in axils. Calyx ellipsoid in bud, either open or closed with tip obtuse to apiculate, completely covering young corolla, deeply splitting between some lobes when flower opens. Corolla salver-shaped, white, usually with silky indumentum outside; lobes spreading, contorted to left. Stamens (5-)7-9, arising at throat; anthers basifixed; connectives broadly flattened. Disc annular. Ovary 2-locular, usually with 2 ovules on a pendulous placenta in each locule. Style filiform, hairy or glabrous, exserted; stigma 2-lobed. Fruit a red, nearly spherical drupe, at first crowned by persistent calyx often withering as fruit ripens. Seeds either 1 per chamber and hemispherical or 2 per chamber and shaped like a quarter of a sphere; seed coat brown and striate; hilar scar apical-adaxial.
Distribution:
Species 17, tropical Africa; 1 in sthn Afr.: Sericanthe andongensis (Hiern) Robbr. var. andongensis, Northern Province.
Classification:
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