Description :

• Trees, shrubs, sometimes climbing, glabrous to densely hairy
• Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3 or 4, usually distinctly petiolate, entire or toothed, often dotted with resinous glands
• Flowers bisexual or plants polygamous, flowers sometimes bilabiate, in terminal, corymbose or panicled cymes; bracts small
• Calyx 2-5-toothed, or 5-lobed; tube cup-shaped or campanulate; somewhat accrescent in fruit
• Corolla 5- or subequally 4-lobed, sometimes 2-lipped, white; tube sometimes somewhat curved, gibbous at base, throat often hairy
• Stamens 4, subdidynamous, arising in or near throat of corolla tube; anther thecae divergent
• Ovary 2- or 4-locular, with 4 ovules; style terete, exserted, 2-lobed
• Fruit a drupe with bony endocarp; pyrene 4-locular
• x = 19 (7) (1 report, B-chromosomes, polyploidy

Nomenclature:

• Premna L.
  • Linnaeus: 154, 252 (1771)
  • Baker: 287 (1900)
  • Pieper: 80 (1928)
  • Phillips: 638 (1951)
  • Verdcourt: 68 (1992)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 200, mainly warmer regions of the Old World
• Southern Africa : Species 2: Premna mooiensis (H.Pearson) Pieper, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, P. senensis Klotzsch, Namibia and Botswana