Description :

• Trees or shrubs, unarmed or armed with spine-tipped abbreviated lateral shoots
• Leaves simply paripinnate or with lower jugae bipinnate; a few leaflet pairs usually obcordate; stipules sometimes spinescent, sometimes caducous
• Inflorescence an axillary or terminal raceme
• Flowers bisexual, irregular
• Calyx eglandular or sometimes covered with many small, stalked glands, with short, sometimes campanulate tube; lobes 5, imbricate slightly unequal, one boat-shaped
• Petals 5, obovate or oblong, slightly unequal, imbricate
• Stamens 10, free, sometimes unequal; filaments pilose at base; anthers often elliptic
• Ovary shortly stalked, 2- or 3-ovuled; style with small, terminal, sometimes hollow stigma
• Pod compressed, lanceolate or oblong, flattened, membranous, splitting longitudinally almost along middle of each valve
• Seeds transversely oblong
• x = 12

Nomenclature:

• Haematoxylum L.
  • Linnaeus: 384 (1753)
  • Schreiber: 14 (1967)
  • Ross: 112 (1977)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 3, Africa, tropical America, India
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Haematoxylum dinteri (Harms) Harms, Namibia