Description:

• Trees or shrubs; monoecious or rarely dioecious
• Leaves alternate; stipulate
• Flowers in axillary fascicles or short racemes; petals usually present
• Male flowers: calyx segments 5, valvate; petals 5 or rarely 0, scale-like; disc entire or sinuately lobed; stamens 5, with filaments united in their lower half into a central column; anther thecae parallel, dehiscing longitudinally; ovary rudimentary within staminal column
• Female flowers: calyx somewhat united at base; disc double, with inner part surrounding ovary; ovary 3-locular, with 2 ovules in each locule; styles bifid
• Fruit a globose capsule, sometimes depressed, often 3-lobed, dehiscent into bivalved cocci; endocarp woody, separating from pericarp at maturity; columella persistent
• Seeds usually 2 per coccus; albumen scanty or copious; cotyledons thick and fleshy
• x = 10, 11

Nomenclature:

• Cleistanthus Hook.f. ex Planch.
  • Planchon: t. 779 (1848)
  • Hutchinson: 382 (1915)
  • Léonard: 421 (1960)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 130 (1987)
  • Webster: 38 (1994)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 8 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 140, Africa, India to Australia
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Cleistanthus schlechteri (Pax) Hutch.; subtropical forests of N KwaZulu-Natal