Description :

• Pachycaul trees; dioecious
• Leaves alternate, digitately compound, with 5-7 petiolulate leaflets, sparsely stellately hairy above, densely so below; stipules small, fugacious
• Inflorescence a panicled cyme
• Male flowers : sepals 4 or 5, densely stellate-pubescent; petals 5, connate into a wide, ± truncate tube; stamens 13-21, free; filaments often hairy at base; disc of 5 ± free, quadrate bodies attached to base of petals; pistil 0
• Female flowers : sepals and petals similar to those of male; staminodes 0; disc crenulate; ovary 1- or 2-locular, with a single ovule in each locule, densely stellate-hairy; style 2-lobed or -partite or divided for half its length into 2 lobes
• Fruit drupaceous, ± size of large walnut, densely fulvous-tomentose, with thick, woody, pitted endocarp divided by membrane into 2 portions except at base and apex
• Seeds compressed-ellipsoid, ecarunculate, irregularly ridged on outer face; albumen copious, fleshy, oily; cotyledons flat, broad, palminerved

Nomenclature:

• Schinziophyton Hutch. ex Radcl.-Sm.
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 157 (1990)
  • Webster: 113 (1994)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 296 (1996)
• Ricinodendron Müll.Arg.
  • Müller Argau: 533 (1864) in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 1, Africa; Schinziophyton rautanenii (Schinz) Radcl.-Sm.
• Southern Africa : Namibia, Botswana and Northern Province