Description:

• Trees or shrubs, glabrous; monoecious
• Leaves alternate, glaucous, with 1-4 glands underneath
• Flowers in spikes terminating in abbreviated twigs, with many male flowers in dense heads and usually shortly pedicellate, female flowers at base; male bracts small, imbricate, glandular at base on each side, each 3-5-flowered; female bracts 1-flowered
• Petals 0
• Disc 0
• Male flowers: calyx shortly 2- or 3-lobed, slightly imbricate in bud; stamens (1)2(3), exserted; filaments united below; anthers oblong; locules parallel, dehiscing longitudinally; ovary rudimentary
• Female flowers pedicellate; pedicels extending in fruit; calyx 3(-6)-lobed; ovary (2)3(-5)-locular, with 1 ovule in each locule; styles (2)3(-5)-lobed, connate at base, straight then reflexed, adaxial stigmatic surface canaliculate and minutely papillose
• Fruit globose or slightly (2)3(-5)-lobed, dehiscing into (2)3(-5) bivalved cocci; exocarp thin, smooth, not separating from endocarp; endocarp ligneous; columella persistent
• Seeds obovoid; outer testa smooth, slightly fleshy (sarcotesta); endotesta crustaceous, smooth, rugulose or foveolate; caruncle large, conical, shallowly 2-lobate, fleshy; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat

Nomenclature:

• Maprounea Aubl.
  • Aublet: 895, t. 342 (1775)
  • Prain: 511 (1920)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 395 (1987)
  • Webster: 123 (1994)
  • Radcliffe-Smith: 325 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 4, Africa and South America
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Maprounea africana Müll.Arg., Namibia and Botswana