Description :

• Evergreen trees, up to 30 m tall, with milky latex; monoecious
• Leaves alternate, simple, shortly petiolate, entire with long, slender drip-tip, coriaceous, pinnately veined to subtriplinerved; stipules fused, amplexicaul, caducous
• Inflorescence a discoid to turbinate receptacle with a solitary central female flower surrounded by numerous free stamens (male flowers not discernable), axillary, pedunculate, usually solitary, initially enveloped by 2 coriaceous scale leaves (modified stipules), with a 6-8-lobed membranous involucre; interfloral bracts 0
• Female flower solitary, basally embedded in receptacle; perianth tubular, 4-lobed or irregularly incised; ovary adnate to perianth; stigmas 2, ligulate, equal
• Fruit a fleshy, urn-shaped syncarp wide open at apex, formed by the enlarged, fleshy, dark purple to red receptacle crowned with remnants of stamens and marginal part of receptacle
• Seeds large, without endosperm; cotyledons equal, thick and fused
• x = 12 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Trilepisium Thouars
  • Thouars: 22 (1806)
  • Candolle: 639 (1825)
  • Berg: 297 (1977)
  • Berg et al.: 104 (1984)
  • Berg: 17 (1989)
  • Berg: 28 (1991)
  • Friis: 170 (1992)
• Bosqueia Thouars ex Baill.
  • Baillon: 338 (1863)
  • Bentham: 370 (1880)
  • Engler: 88 (1889)
  • Engler: 35 (1898)
  • Hutchinson: 218 (1917)
• Pontya A.Chev.
  • Chevalier: 210 (1912)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Monotypic, tropical Africa, from Guinea to S Ethiopia, East Africa and southwards to southern Africa, also in Madagascar and Seychelles
• Southern Africa : Northern Province