Description:

• Unarmed trees
• Leaves bipinnate, with 2-5 pairs of pinnae; leaflets usually large, leathery, often alternate, eglandular; stipules very small, soon deciduous
• Inflorescences of pedunculate spike-like racemes usually ± aggregated into panicles; bracts very small, falling as or before flowers open
• Flowers bisexual, irregular, 5-merous, small, shortly pedicelled
• Calyx narrowly campanulate, with 5 ovate or tooth-like lobes shorter than tube
• Petals 5, imbricate, arising on calyx tube, free, oblong to oblanceolate-spatulate, pubescent or tomentose
• Stamens 10, free, equal or unequal, arising with petals; filaments sometimes hairy; anthers dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits
• Ovary stalked, many-ovuled, stipitate, tomentose or densely pubescent; style thick; stigma small, terminal, hollow, minutely ciliolate
• Pod stipitate, ± oblong, flattened, straight or slightly curved, coriaceous to woody, dehiscing along one or both margins, usually 2-1-seeded
• Seeds compressed, ovoid; testa pulpy
• x = 12, 14

Nomenclature:

• Erythrophleum Afzel. ex G.Don
  • Don: 424 (1832) name conserved
  • Hutchinson: 259 (1964)
  • Brenan: 18 (1967)
  • Ross: 10 (1977)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 10, tropical and subtropical parts of Africa to Asia and N Australia
• Southern Africa: Species 2, N Namibia, the four northern provinces, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal