Description :

• Evergreen trees up to 12 m high, young shoots terete or slightly oval in transection, glabrous
• Leaves opposite, decussate, simple, coriaceous, margin entire, rolled under; ± sessile when young, petiolate later; stipules rudimentary, very small, lateral, marcescent
• Inflorescence a multifloral panicle, mainly terminal; bracts usually caducous
• Flowers bisexual, regular, hexamerous
• Sepals 6, white and petal-like, recurved, valvate and distinctly beaked in bud, persistent; hypanthium (calyx tube) short
• Petals 6, free, arising on rim of hypanthium and alternating with sepals, conspicuously and narrowly clawed, recurved, fragile, fugacious; limb ± orbicular, margin lacerate, hood-like and covering anthers in bud only
• Stamens 6, antepetalous, arising near inner rim of hypanthium; filaments ± terete; anthers sub-basifixed, versatile, 2-thecous, 4-sporangiate, introrse, longitudinally dehiscent; connective elliptical with lateral sporangia, inflexed in bud
• Disc absent
• Ovary superior, 2(3)-locular, bilaterally compressed; style stout, shorter than ovary, basal part persistent; stigma capitate, covered by minute papillae; ovules ± 15-20 per locule, anatropous, pleurotropous, superposed in a single vertical series; placentation axile
• Fruit a dorsiventrally compressed (rarely trigonous) capsule, loculicidal at apex, reddish brown
• Seeds ± 15-20 per locule, depressed-ovoid, narrowly winged (expanded raphe); testa thin and papery, rather smooth, brownish, without endosperm; embryo ± flattened, cotyledons folded inside

Nomenclature:

• Rhynchocalyx Oliv.
  • Oliver: 8, t. 234 (1895)
  • Strey & Leistner: 9 (1958)
  • Pooley: 346 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 1: Rhynchocalyx lawsonioides Oliv., forests of S KwaZulu-Natal