Description :

• Trees or shrubs
• Leaves opposite, entire or faintly crenate, shortly petiolate, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate; stipules 0
• Inflorescence a terminal or pseudoaxillary cyme
• Flowers small to rather large, usually scented
• Calyx divided almost to base, glandular within; sepals imbricate, ovate
• Corolla ± salver-shaped; tube cylindric, usually short, with variously divided or entire, connate or free appendages in throat (rarely without); lobes longer than tube, overlapping to the left
• Stamens inserted in mouth of corolla; filaments short, stout, with tuft of hairs at back; anthers 4-locular, conniving in a cone, exserted, lanceolate, acute to acuminate, sagittate, with a small, projecting appendage from foot of connective
• Disc a narrow rim or 0
• Ovary of 2 free carpels; style filiform; stigma capitate with small or obscure frill at base and minute, cleft tip
• Mericarps 2, follicular, cylindric or spindle-shaped, subparallel
• Seeds cylindric or spindle-shaped, glabrous except for basal tuft of hairs
• x = 11

Nomenclature:

• Wrightia R.Br.
  • Brown: 73 (1811)
  • Stapf: 508 (1907)
  • Codd: 295 (1963)
  • Leeuwenberg: 480 (1985)
• Balfouria R.Br.
  • Brown: 70 (1811).
• Anasser Blanco
  • Blanco: 112 (1837) non Juss. (1789).
• Piagiaea Chiov.
  • Chiovenda: 290 (1932).
• Walidda Pichon
  • Pichon: 87 (1951).
• Scleranthera Pichon
  • Pichon: 88 (1951)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 23, Old World, 2 in Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Wrightia natalensis Stapf, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal