Description:

• Shrubs or small trees, usually with spines formed from modified lateral branchlets
• Leaves usually clustered on short, opposite, axillary branchlets or cushion-like shoots; stipules short, ovate-acuminate or triangular, apiculate, deciduous
• Flowers 1 or 2(3) together, terminating opposite pairs of abbreviated lateral shoots
• Calyx 5-lobed, lobes short; tube ovoid or campanulate; limb-tube shortly cylindrical, ellipsoid or urceolate
• Corolla white, densely pubescent outside except for base of tube; tube ± campanulate, shorter than lobes, with a circular band of long hairs within
• Stamens 5, arising on corolla tube or in mouth, exserted or included; filaments linear, shorter than anthers; anthers oblong or linear
• Ovary 2-locular, placentae attached to septum; ovules many; style terete or thickened upwards, as long as tube or exserted; stigma ellipsoid or cylindrical, grooved or 2-lobed
• Fruit 2-locular, globose, many-seeded, crowned by persistent calyx lobes
• Seeds discoid or compressed-ellipsoid with slightly raised reticulation on testa

Nomenclature:

• Catunaregam Wolf
  • Wolf: 75 (1776)
  • Bridson & Verdcourt: 496 (1988)
• Xeromphis Raf.
  • Rafinesque: 21 (1838)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 6, tropical Africa to Asia
• Southern Africa: 1 subspecies: Catunaregam spinosa (Thunb.) Tirveng. subsp. spinosa, in Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal