Description :

• Large shrubs or small trees
• Leaves opposite, expanded, membranous
• Flowers in heads or spikes; bracts 0
• Calyx 4-lobed; tube cylindric; lobes ovate or lanceolate
• Petals 4, bipartite, appearing as 8 linear or oblong lobes, almost as long as calyx lobes, membranous
• Stamens 8, in two series; upper series in throat, the other slightly below; filaments very short; anthers linear
• Ovary 1-locular, with a single ovule and with long, somewhat stiff hairs on upper part; style lateral, included; stigma simple or subglobose
• Fruit dry, enclosed in persistent base of calyx tube
• Seeds small

Nomenclature:

• Englerodaphne Gilg
  • Gilg: 274 (1894)
  • Pearson: 237 (1910)
  • Wright: 78 (1915)
  • Domke: 134 (1934)
  • Phillips: 65 (1944)
  • Peterson: 18 (1978)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 2 or 3, Africa
• Southern Africa : Endemic, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Western and Eastern Cape especially near East London