Description:

• Shrubs to tall evergreen trees, unarmed, glabrous; bark with layers of yellow pigment occasionally present or hardly discernible
• Branchlets subangular to terete; lenticels usually prominent
• Leaves opposite to subopposite, occasionally alternate, spiralled to fasciculate; stipules minute, ± triangular, marcescent
• Inflorescences usually pedunculate, dichasial
• Flowers usually bisexual or occasionally unisexual, sometimes with petaloid staminodes in female flowers; pedicellate
• Sepals 3-5, equal, subcircular
• Petals 3-5, cream to greenish, oblong to ovate, entire or with ventral projections, spreading
• Disc entire to subentire and convex, fleshy, or flat and quadrangular, with sinuses at points where stamens arise, flat to concave
• Stamens 3-5, erect to spreading; arising inside margin of disc or from sinuses in margin of disc
• Ovary ± half immersed in and adnate to disc, 2-4-locular, with 2 erect, collateral ovules per locule; style short to astylous; stigma inconspicuous
• Fruit drupaceous, spheroid to ellipsoid, white to yellow; stone narrowly elliptic to elliptic, surface smooth or with grooves
• Seeds brownish, narrowly ellipsoid, ovoid, flattened to triangular, postchalazal vascular bundles often present; endosperm present; embryo erect with cotyledons fleshy, elliptic or ovate
• x = 17

Nomenclature:

• Elaeodendron Jacq.
  • Jacquin: t. 48 (1782) & 5 (1787)
  • Robson: 385 (1966)
  • Robson et al.: 29 (1994)
  • Archer & Van Wyk: 41 (1996)
  • Archer & Van Wyk: 93 (1998)
• Cassine L. in part
  • Davison: 326 (1927).
• Crocoxylon Eckl. & Zeyh.
  • Ecklon & Zeyher: 128 (1834/1835)
  • Robson: 40 (1965)
  • Robson: 390 (1966).
• Pseudocassine Bredell
  • Bredell: 330 (1937)
  • Compton: 338 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 30, cosmopolitan; 8 widespread in Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 4, mainly in forest or woodland: Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Western and Eastern Cape