Description:

• Trees, deciduous; monoecious; branches with prominent leaf scars
• Leaves alternate (spiral), tufted at ends of branchlets, imparipinnate, with many opposite leaflets, usually with crenate margins; stipules 0
• Inflorescence axillary, of paniculate cymes
• Flowers usually unisexual, regular; flowers of only one sex open on a tree at a time
• Calyx of 4 free sepals
• Petals 4, free, imbricate, usually glandular at base within
• Disc fleshy, annular or swollen
• Stamens 4, alternating with petals, and arising on outside of disc; staminodes present in female flowers
• Ovary superior, 4-locular, 4-lobed, with solitary ovule in each locule; placentas axile; reduced in male flowers; style slender, with capitate stigma formed of 4 fused styles, caducous about middle with age and simulating 4 free, short styles, absent in male flowers
• Fruit dry, sharply 4-angled, at length separating into 4 or 8 1-seeded cocci, triquetrous, suspended from top of a central carpophore
• Seeds slender, triangular in cross section; endosperm ± 0

Nomenclature:

• Kirkia Oliv.
  • Oliver: 311 (1868)
  • Wild & Phipps: 214 (1963)
  • Stannard: 829 (1981)
  • Immelman: 1 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 5 in Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 3, Namibia, Northern Province and Mpumalanga