Description :

• Shrubs or trees, monoecious, producing male and then female flowers either on the same inflorescence or on separate inflorescences
• Leaves simple, usually petiolate, oblong or obovate, entire or sometimes toothed, especially on coppice shoots
• Flowers small, regular; in panicles or racemes
• Sepals 5, small, connate to form a cupular or saucer-shaped calyx; lobes ovate
• Petals 4-6, ± as long as calyx, villous within
• Disc small, annular
• Stamens 8-10, arising within disc; filaments villous
• Ovary 2- or 3-locular, 2- or 3-lobed, hirsute, with a solitary ovule in each locule; style short, thick; stigma simple
• Fruit usually globose, velvety, green to brown, with 1 or 2 locules aborting; splitting to reveal a seed enclosed in a jelly-like, orange-red arillode
• Seeds globose, black, shiny, with basal, circular depression

Nomenclature:

• Pappea Eckl. & Zeyh.
  • Ecklon & Zeyher: 53 (1834/1835)
  • Exell: 540 (1966)
  • Fivaz & Robbertse: 342 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 1: Pappea capensis Eckl. & Zeyh., Africa, very variable, widespread