Description :

• Trees, shrubs or scramblers, with or without spines; bark sometimes thickly corky
• Leaves decussate, 3-, 5- or 7-nerved from base, sometimes rudimentary near base of lateral, ultimate branchlets; stipules reduced to an interpetiolar ridge
• Inflorescence terminal or axillary, cymose; cymes simple or compound
• Flowers regular, bisexual
• Calyx 4- or 5-lobed; lobes ± as long as tube or longer, sometimes much longer, then linear to linear-subulate and as long as or longer than corolla; tube glabrous within
• Corolla 4- or 5-lobed, greenish, cream or whitish; lobes valvate, inner face often bearded, at least at base; tube glabrous or puberulous within, sometimes bearded at throat
• Stamens 4 or 5, arising on corolla tube, usually near throat; filaments short; anthers basifixed, included to exserted, thecae distinct, with longitudinal slits
• Ovary superior, 1- or 2-locular, rarely 3-locular at base; style straight; stigma terminal; ovules several to many, axile or basal
• Fruit a berry, often globose, 10-90 mm in diam., rind leathery or thick and woody
• Seeds 1-several, embedded in pulp, variously shaped, with hilum in various positions; cotyledons thin, white; endosperm horny; seed coat sometimes becoming cartilaginous
• x = 11 (12) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Strychnos L.
  • Linnaeus: 189 (1753)
  • Verdoorn: 136 (1963)
  • Roessler: 1 (1967)
  • Leeuwenberg: 353 (1983)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 400, cosmopolitan under tropical and subtropical conditions
• Southern Africa : Species 9, widespread, but not in Western Cape