Description :

• Trees or shrubs, usually glabrous
• Leaves opposite or whorled, often large, shortly petioled, penninerved; axillary glands many in a dense fringe or in clusters; stipules 0
• Inflorescence a terminal or pseudoaxillary, peduncled, usually many-flowered, simple or compound umbel or corymb, rarely a raceme
• Flowers small, white or yellowish
• Calyx small, divided almost to base or united into a shallow, 5-toothed cup, eglandular within; sepals or segments imbricate
• Corolla salver-shaped; tube cylindric, slightly widened below mouth, very rarely just below middle; mouth constricted, without appendages; lobes shorter than tube, overlapping to the left
• Stamens in widened part of tube; filaments short, terete; anthers 4-locular, free from stigma, ovate, acute to obtuse, shortly 2-lobed at base
• Disc annular or cup-shaped, entire or slightly lobed
• Ovary of 2 free or coherent carpels; style subterete; stigma capitate or shortly cylindric, minutely papillose and slightly viscous, with a basal, deflexed rim and a very short, slightly bilobed apiculus arising from a shallow depression; ovules 2 in each locule, collateral
• Mericarps 2 (or often 1 by abortion) free, or ± united, drupaceous; pyrenes crustaceous, 1- or 2-seeded, ± compressed
• Seeds ovoid
• x = 11 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Rauvolfia L.
  • Linnaeus: 208 (1753)
  • Stapf: 501 (1907)
  • Codd: 274 (1963)
  • De Kruif: 458 (1985)
  • Van Dilst & Leeuwenberg: 21 (1991)
• Ophioxylon L.
  • Linnaeus: 1043 (1753)
• Dissolaena Lour.
  • Loureiro: 137 (1790)
• Cyrtosiphonia Miq.
  • Miquel: 401 (1857)
• Heurckia Müll.Arg.
  • Müller Argoviensis: 53 (1870)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 60, pantropical, 7 in Africa, 3 in Madagascar
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Rauvolfia caffra Sond. (= R. natalensis Sond.); Northern Province, North-West, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape