Description :

• Evergreen shrubs or trees, unarmed, glabrous with elastic threads of trans-1, 4-polyisoprene in bark; bark without yellow pigment
• Branchlets ± 4-lined, ± rugulose
• Leaves alternate; elastic (rubber) threads evident on breaking lamina; stipules minute, marcescent, brownish black
• Inflorescences sessile, composed of fasciculate cymes
• Flowers bisexual, pedicellate
• Sepals 5, unequal, outermost pair larger, fleshy, ± deltoid, laciniate; inner pair membranous, enlarged, remaining sepal ± intermediate between outer and inner pair
• Petals 5, cream, oblong, margin entire
• Disc fleshy, entire
• Stamens 5, erect, arising from and united at base with margin of disc; anthers introrse
• Ovary ± immersed in and adnate to disc, 2-locular, with 2 erect, collateral ovules per locule; style very short or absent; stigma inconspicuously lobed
• Fruit a drupe, white or yellow to light brown, spheroid, 5-10 mm in diameter; endocarp thin and crustaceous; mesocarp fleshy
• Seeds 1 or 2 per fruit; seed coat brown; endosperm present, fleshy; embryo erect, linear

Nomenclature:

• Robsonodendron R.H.Archer
  • Archer & Van Wyk: 116 (1997)
• Mystroxylon Eckl. & Zeyh. sect. Pseudoscytophyllum Loes.
  • Loesener: 178 (1942)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 2, endemic in forests or coastal bush, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Western and Eastern Cape