Description :

• Shrublets, sometimes rhizomatous with a strong rootstock
• Leaves opposite, rarely in whorls of 3, shortly petiolate; stipules connate at base, villous within, often at length deciduous
• Flowers in simple, axillary cymes, rarely fasicled; bracts and bracteoles present
• Calyx 5-partite; segments triangular or linear, obtuse, often foliaceous, sometimes exceeding corolla tube
• Corolla 5-lobed, green or greenish yellow to greenish white, glabrous or hairy; lobes variable, reflexed, often apiculate; tube shortly and broadly cylindric, with ring of deflexed hairs inside, throat usually slightly hairy
• Stamens 5, arising in corolla mouth, exserted; filaments usually shorter than anthers; anthers lanceolate, sometimes apiculate
• Disc annular, tumid
• Ovary (4)5-locular with a single pendulous ovule in each locule; style slender, terete, exserted; stigmatic knob shortly and broadly cylindric, often sulcate, obscurely (4)5-lobed
• Fruit a globose or obovoid drupe, with 2-5 pyrenes, crowned by persistent calyx limb
• x ±11 (aneuploids)

Nomenclature:

• Pachystigma Hochst.
  • Hochstetter: 234 (1842)
  • Sonder: 13 (1865) under Vangueria
  • Robyns: 117 (1928)
  • Verdcourt & Bridson: 764 (1991)
  • Bridson: 241 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 10, warm parts of Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 10, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape