Deciduous trees, small or shrubby, not climbing, dioecious or rarely monoecious
Leaves simple, deeply bilobed, cordate basally
Inflorescence a terminal, axillary or leaf-opposed raceme
Flowers unisexual, rarely bisexual, irregular
Calyx with turbinate tube and 4 or 5 short, acute lobes
Petals 5, subequal
Stamens 10, fertile in male flowers, reduced to staminodes in female flowers; filaments villous below; anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits
Ovary many-ovuled, stalked; stigma sessile, thick, capitate, flattened-globose; funicle several times as long as ovule
Pod linear to oblong, leathery or woody, indehiscent
Seeds irregularly arranged, embedded in pulp
x = 12, 13, 14 (polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Piliostigma Hochst.
Hochstetter: 598 (1846) name conserved
Milne-Redhead: t. 3460 (1947)
Brenan: 206 (1967)
Coetzer & Ross: 58 (1977)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 3, Africa to Asia and Australia
Southern Africa: Species 1: Piliostigma thonningii (Schumach.) Milne-Redh., N Namibia, Northern Province and Mpumalanga
References:
BRENAN, J.P.M. 1967. Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae (part 2). Caesalpinioideae
COETZER, L.A. & ROSS, J.H. 1977. Subfamily 2. Caesalpinioideae. Flora of southern Africa 16,2
HOCHSTETTER, C.F.F. 1846. Flora 29
MILNE-REDHEAD, E. 1947. Icones plantarum. 3460
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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In future, Team SANBI will be able to log in using their day-to-day login details, BGIS users will be able to use their existing accounts and details, and general users will be able to log in using their LinkedIn profile, but for now you will need to create an account.
