Description:

• Shrubs or trees, with simple or forked spines
• Leaves alternate, 2-foliolate; leaflets obovate, elliptic or ovate-elliptic, entire; stipules 0
• Flowers bisexual, regular, in axillary cymes
• Calyx: sepals 5, free, somewhat leathery, villous on outer surface, tomentose within, 4 inner ones with membranous margins
• Petals 5, free, somewhat fleshy, imbricate
• Disc thick, 10-furrowed or 5-lobed
• Stamens 10, inserted at base of disc; filaments free; anthers 2-thecous, opening by longitudinal slits
• Ovary superior but partly immersed in disc, 5-locular, globose, with an apical pendulous ovule in each locule, villous; style short, terete or 5-grooved; stigmas 1-5, simple
• Fruit a fleshy drupe, 1-seeded by abortion
• Seeds with thick, oily cotyledons; endosperm 0
• x = 9 (8) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Balanitaceae
  • Launert: 221 (1963)
  • Heine & Schreiber: 1 (1966)
  • Hutchinson: 327 (1973) and A.P.G.: 549 (1998) under Zygophyllaceae

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 1, species ± 20, mostly in Africa, few in Malaysia
• Southern Africa: Genera 1, species 4

References:

• A.P.G. 1998. An ordinal classification for the families of flowering plants. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 85: 531 under Zygophyllaceae
• HEINE, H. & SCHREIBER, A. 1966. Balanitaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 66
• HUTCHINSON, J. 1973. The families of flowering plants, edn 3, Vol. 1. Clarendon, Oxford
• LAUNERT, E. 1963. Balanitaceae. Flora zambesiaca 2

Resources:

• Balanitaceae genus: Balanites