Description :

• Scandent shrubs or small trees, with or without spines, usually with stiff, thick branches
• Leaves petiolate, oblong, elliptic or ovate, glabrous or hairy; stipules thick, triangular, connate at base into a sheath, long-caudate at apex
• Flowers in opposite, simple to much-branched, many-flowered, axillary cymes; bracts conspicuous; buds elongate-lanceolate, beaked
• Calyx 5-partite, segments erect, ovate to linear
• Corolla 5-lobed, green, densely villous; lobes reflexed, long, linear; tube cylindric to somewhat campanulate, with ring of deflexed hairs within, rarely glabrous; throat glabrous
• Stamens 5, arising in corolla mouth, exserted; filaments usually shorter than linear anthers
• Disc annular, tumid
• Ovary 2-locular, with a single pendulous ovule in each locule; style much exserted; stigmatic knob widely cylindric, 2-lobed
• Fruit a subglobose drupe with 1 or 2 pyrenes
• x = 11 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Vangueriopsis Robyns
  • Robyns: 248 (1928)
  • Launert: 27 (1966)
  • Verdcourt & Bridson: 773 (1991)
  • Bridson: 304 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 18, tropical Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Vangueriopsis lanciflora (Hiern) Robyns ex Good, Namibia