Description:

• Annual herbs, often diffuse, with stellate hairs or hispid; monoecious
• Leaves alternate, petiolate; stipules small, setaceous
• Inflorescence a short, dense, axillary raceme
• Male flowers: calyx 5-partite, densely stellately hairy; petals 5, membranous, equalling or shorter than sepals; disc inconspicuous, of 5 glands or circular; stamens 5-15, in 1-3 series, outer filaments very short, the rest united into a minutely pubescent tube; ovary absent
• Female flowers: calyx segments narrowly linear; petals small, setaceous or absent; disc swollen or of glands alternating with petals; ovary 3-locular, with single ovule in each locule, stellately hairy; styles bifid, papillate
• Fruit a somewhat fleshy capsule, splitting into 3 cocci, leaving a columella; endocarp thinly woody
• Seed ovoid or subglobose, smooth with woody testa, enveloped in thin shiny aril; albumen thick, fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat

Nomenclature:

• Chrozophora Neck. ex Juss.
  • Jussieu: 27 (1824) as Crozophora, current name conserved
  • Prain: 457 (1920)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 160 (1987)
  • Webster: 73 (1994)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 141 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 10, S Europe, east Africa, central and S Asia
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Chrozophora plicata (Vahl) Spreng., Northern Province near Punda Milia