Description:

• Shrubs or small trees, sometimes scandent; spines, if present, straight
• Leaves paired, petiolate; domatia either 0, pit-like or present as tufts of hair; shortly sheathing, apiculate or aristate, glabrous or pubescent within
• Flowers pedicellate or not; in pedunculate to subsessile, few- to many-flowered cymes; bracteoles inconspicuous
• Calyx with 4 or 5 teeth, rarely lobed, saucer- or basin-shaped
• Corolla 4- or 5-lobed, white or yellowish, glabrous; lobes reflexed, obtuse, acute or shortly apiculate; tube broadly cylindrical, with or without a ring of deflexed hairs inside, often pubescent at throat
• Stamens 4 or 5, arising in corolla mouth; filaments usually shorter than anthers
• Disc annular, glabrous or pubescent
• Ovary 2(-4)-locular, with a single pendulous ovule in each locule; style slender, shortly exceeding corolla tube, glabrous; stigmatic knob ± spherical, point of attachment distinctly recessed, 2(3)-lobed
• Fruit a (1)2(3)-seeded drupe with pyrenes ellipsoid to ovoid or obovoid, often flattened on ventral face, with a shallow crest extending to apex, usually rugulose
• x = 11 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Canthium Lam.
  • Lamarck: 602 (1785)
  • Sonder: 16 (1865)
  • Phillips: 732 (1951)
  • Verdcourt & Bridson: 861 (1991)
  • Bridson: 366 (1992)
  • Bridson: 315 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 52, tropical areas of the Old World
• Southern Africa: Species 13, widespread in the eastern regions but absent from Namibia, Northern Cape and Western Cape