Description:

• Small trees or scrambling shrubs; dioecious or polygamous
• Leaves alternate, simple, usually glandular-serrate, penninerved, midrib and lateral veins prominent below, often with domatia in axils; stipules usually 0 or minute
• Inflorescences dense, much branched, axillary panicles, shorter than leaves
• Flowers bisexual, sometimes unisexual, ± regular, small
• Calyx: tube obconic, adnate to ovary; lobes 5, subulate, distant, triangular at base, puberulous, persistent
• Petals 5, ± free, ovate-deltoid, perigynous, broad at base and confluent with epigynous disc, valvate, puberulous, persistent
• Stamens 5, alternating with petals, inserted at margin of disc; filaments subulate, villous; anthers dorsifixed, villous, small, ovoid, the thecae separated by a thick connective
• Ovary partly inferior, 2-locular; ovules many on axile placentas; styles 2, subulate, adherent or diverging; stigmas capitate
• Fruit a small leathery capsule, half-inferior, 2-locular, dehiscing septicidally through persistent styles, many-seeded
• Seeds small, irregularly obovoid or oblong-obovoid, sculptured, slightly curved; testa black; endosperm copious; embryo small or large

Nomenclature:

• Choristylis Harv.
  • Harvey: 19 (1842)
  • Harvey: 308 (1862)
  • Hooker: 647 (1865)
  • Engler: 214 (1928)
  • Verdcourt: 1 (1973)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 1: Choristylis rhamnoides Harv., restricted to east, central and southern Africa
• Southern Africa: Northern Province, Mpumalanga (eastern lowveld) to KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape