Description :

• Trees or shrubs; terminal vegetative buds conical
• Leaves usually in whorls of 4, petiolate, elongate, lanceolate; stipules narrowly triangular, deciduous
• Flowers in pedunculate, dense, spherical, heads, with 2 connate bracts on each peduncle; each flower subtended by a linear-spatulate bract
• Calyx 5-lobed, lobes oblong; limb-tube developed, densely hairy
• Corolla 5-lobed, hairy; pinkish green or white or yellowish brown, lobes elliptic, concave, imbricate; tube cylindric, 5-ribbed, glandular within
• Stamens 5, arising in throat of corolla, included; filaments linear, shorter than anthers; anthers basifixed, oblong, sagittate, apiculate
• Ovary 2-locular, with several pendulous ovules in each locule; placenta attached to upper third of septum; style terete, long-exserted; pollen presenter club-shaped
• Fruit septicidal capsules, clustered in hard, brown, spherical heads
• Seeds ovoid or obovoid, compressed, not winged

Nomenclature:

• Breonadia Ridsdale
  • Ridsdale: 549 (1975)
  • Bridson & Verdcourt: 443 (1988)
• Adina Salisb.
  • Salisbury: 115 (1807) in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 1: Breonadia salicina (Vahl) Hepper & J.R.I.Wood, tropical Africa and Madagascar
• Southern Africa : Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Swaziland