Description:
Shrubs or trees, not climbing, with simple hairs. Flowers bisexual, solitary or paired, axillary, sometimes on old wood; buds depressed-globose; bracteoles 2-6, usually biseriate, forming an involucre in sessile flowers. Sepals 3, valvate, free or united at base, not enclosing petals in bud, with plane margins, densely brown- or golden-sericeous outside, glabrous within. Petals 6 in 2 whorls, outer valvate, inner valvate above and open below, expanding and spreading at anthesis or inner whorl remaining connivent at apex, free subequal, thick. Stamens very many, linear, with thecae lateral or extrorse and prolongations of connective capitate. Carpels many, cylindric, with many ovules in 2 rows; style very short; stigma truncate, horseshoe-shaped; ripe carpels indehiscent, ovoid or ellipsoid to cylindric, straight, subsessile, many-seeded. Seeds +/-horizontal; aril absent.
Distribution:
Species +/-12, trop. Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 1: Uvariodendron molundense (Engl. & Diels) R.E.Fr., Angola (Cabinda). An unnamed species is also recorded from Mozambique by Robson (1960). The genus differs from Uvariastrum in the shape of the buds and in the sepals, which do not enclose the petals in bud. It is closely related to Polyceratocarpus Engl. & Diels in which the inner petals are wholly contiguous and the fruits are usually curved.
Source:
SSTA
Synonym(s):
Uvaria sect. Uvariodendron Engl. & Diels
Classification:
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