Description :

• Trees or shrubs
• Leaves alternate, petiolate, serrate, rarely entire, with reticulate, arched, closed veins; stipules small, covering very young, pointed leaf buds, caducous
• Inflorescence simple or compound, axillary and/or terminal; pedicels articulated; bracts small, caducous
• Flowers regular, small
• Sepals persistent, short and hard
• Petals equal or subequal, soft, erect or reflexed, white, greenish white, yellow or red
• Stamens 5; filaments connate below to form a tube, with or without appendages; anthers with connective variously appendaged and occasionally also bearing thecal appendages
• Ovary with 3 parietal placentas; style straight; stigma terminal, small; ovules 1-several on each placenta
• Capsule 3-valved, inner tissues woody, tearing apart from outer skin
• Seeds 1-3 per valve, compressed, hard, shiny
• x = 6 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Rinorea Aubl.
  • Aublet: 235, t. 93 (1775)
  • Robson: 246 (1960)
  • Obermeyer: 42 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 250, tropics and subtropics
• Southern Africa : Species 3, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape