Description :

• Herbs, undershrubs from perennial rootstocks, shrubs, or trees; monoecious or sometimes dioecious
• Leaves scale-like cataphylls or foliage leaves, alternate; stipulate
• Inflorescence mainly of many fascicled male flowers and solitary female flowers in upper axils
• Petals 0
• Male flowers : sepals 4-6, membranous, free or slightly connate at base, imbricate; disc often small, of separate glands, rarely annular; stamens 2-6, in middle of flower; filaments free or connate, or some free and some connate; ovary 0
• Female flowers : sepals as in male or larger; disc usually annular, saucer- or cup-shaped, rarely of separate glands; ovary 3(-many)-locular, with 2 ovules in each locule; styles 3, free or partly connate, usually bifid or bilobed
• Fruit a capsule, dry or somewhat fleshy, dehiscent or subdehiscent; endocarp usually crustaceous
• Seeds 3-angled, often longitudinally sulcate or pitted; testa thinly crustaceous; albumen fleshy; embryo straight or slightly incurved; cotyledons flat, straight or rarely flexuous
• x = 13 (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) (aneuploids, high polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

• Phyllanthus L.
  • Linnaeus: 987 (1753)
  • Hutchinson: 386 (1920)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 10 (1987)
  • Webster: 44 (1994)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 36 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 750-800; cosmopolitan in tropical and subtropical rcgions, ± 150 in Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 22, widespread