Description :

• Trees or shrubs, usually with milky latex; monoecious, rarely dioecious
• Leaves alternate, entire or remotely toothed; stipules 0
• Inflorescence a terminal, bisexual spike with many male flowers above and few basal female flowers, bracteate; bracts sometimes with 2 or 3 glands on either side at base
• Petals 0
• Disc 0
• Male flowers : calyx 2- or 3(4)-lobed; stamens 2 or 3(4); filaments free; pistil absent
• Female flowers long-pedicellate; calyx 2- or 3(4)-lobed; ovary (2)3(4)-locular, with 1 ovule in each locule; styles (2)3(4), free or slightly connate at base, sometimes spreading around ovary
• Fruit a capsule, often woody, (2)3(4)-coccous, globose, often wrinkled; cocci bivalved or subindehiscent or bacciform; endocarp smooth or cornute, often coriaceous; endocarp woody or crustaceous, thick or thin; columella generally persistent
• Seeds (1)2 or 3(4) per fruit, globose or ellipsoid, rarely carunculate; sarcotesta thin or fleshy; endotesta crustaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat
• x = 11 (10) (high polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

• Sapium P.Browne
  • Browne: 338 (1756)
  • Prain: 513 (1920)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 389 (1987)
  • Webster: 123 (1994)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 318 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 125, pantropical but predominantly neotropical
• Southern Africa : Species 2, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal to Eastern Cape