Description :

• Shrubs or trees
• Leaves opposite, relatively large, shortly petioled, penninerved; leaf bases united into a rim or short sheath; axillary glands present; stipules small, united in an interpetiolar rim or short sheath
• Inflorescence terminal, frequently paired, corymbose or umbellate, rarely racemose
• Flowers usually large and showy, white, yellow or greenish- to violet-brown, sometimes unpleasantly scented
• Calyx tubular or subcampanulate, with a ring or zone of scattered glands within near base, early circumscissile at base and deciduous or more persistent; lobes shorter than tube, obtuse, imbricate
• Corolla salver-shaped, often fleshy; tube cylindric, constricted below middle and at mouth with callus thickenings round the often very narrow orifices and with prominent filamental ridges within; lobes overlapping to the left, ovate, unequal at base
• Stamens sessile; anthers 4-locular, adnate by a broad base to corolla tube, ovate-lanceolate, deeply sagittate
• Disc usually annular, fleshy, surrounding base of ovary or cupular and concealing ovary, rarely reduced to inconspicuous ring
• Ovary of 2 free or rarely connate carpels; style columnar, thickened upwards, compressed; stigma subcapitate, 5-grooved, with a fleshy, wavy ring or frill at base; ovules many in each locule
• Mericarps 2, baccate, globose or pear-shaped, with a sticky latex
• Seeds many, embedded in fleshy pulp, ellipsoid, grooved ventrally; testa grooved or ruminate
• x = 11

Nomenclature:

• Voacanga Thouars
  • Thouars:10 (1806)
  • Stapf: 507 (1907)
  • Codd: 273 (1963)
  • Leeuwenberg: 434 (1985)
• Annularia Hochst.
  • Hochstetter: 670 (1841).
• Cyclostigma Endl.
  • Endlicher: 56 (1842)
  • Endlicher: 828 (1844).
• Piptolaena Harv.
  • Harvey: 25 (1842)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 12, Old World, 7 in Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Voacanga thouarsii Roem. & Schult. (= V. dregei E.Mey.), KwaZulu-Natal and border area of Eastern Cape