Description:

• Shrubs or shrublets, rigid, tomentose
• Leaves opposite, rarely 3-nate, shortly petiolate, lanceolate or elliptic, somewhat paler on undersurface; stipules connate into a sheath, densely hairy within, distinctly subulate-caudate at apex
• Flowers solitary or in few- to several-flowered, simple or branched, peduncled, pubescent to tomentose cymes; bracts small
• Calyx 5-lobed, hairy; lobes much longer then saucer-shaped tube
• Corolla 5-lobed, yellow or orange-yellow, hairy; lobes ovate or ovate-lanceolate, reflexed, shorter than tube; tube elongate, slightly curved, with a ring of reflexed hairs near base within throat
• Stamens 5, arising in corolla throat, mainly included; filaments broadly linear, much shorter than anthers; anthers lanceolate-linear
• Disc annular
• Ovary 5-locular, with a single pendulous ovule in each locule; style slender, glabrous, shortly exserted, pollen presenter large, cylindrical, shortly 5-lobed at apex
• Fruit a fleshy, globose drupe crowned with calyx limb, with 5 pyrenes

Nomenclature:

• Ancylanthos Desf.
  • Desfontaines: 5 (1818) as Ancylanthus
  • Robyns: 324 (1928)
  • Phillips: 734 (1951)
  • Launert: 7 (1966)
  • Verdcourt & Bridson: 800 (1991)
  • Bridson: 236 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 5, tropical Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Ancylanthos rubiginosus Desf., Namibia and Botswana