Description:

• Trees or shrubs
• Leaves decussate or rarely whorled, shortly petiolate, elliptic to obovate, entire or serrate; stipules caducous
• Flowers axillary, solitary or clustered; bracts present
• Calyx 4-7-lobed; tube ± campanulate; lobes ovate to lanceolate, often reflexed, valvate
• Petals 4-7, as long as calyx lobes, linear to oblong-spatulate, laciniate, fimbriate or deeply 5-lobed
• Stamens 8-40, outside, on, or inside a fleshy or membranous disc, as long or up to 3 times as long as calyx lobes; anthers oblong
• Ovary 2-4-locular, rarely incompletely so at apex, free or slightly adnate to base of calyx, with 2 pendulous ovules in each locule; style longer than ovary, obscurely lobed
• Fruit a capsule, sometimes berry-like at first, septicidally dehiscent
• Seeds 2-4, compressed or angled
• x = 16 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Cassipourea Aubl.
  • Aublet: 528 (1775)
  • Alston: 241 (1925)
  • Torre & Gonçalves: 89 (1978)
• Weihea Spreng.
  • Sprengel: 559 (1825)
• Dactylopetalum Benth.
  • Bentham: 79 (1858)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 70, mainly tropical and southern Africa, also tropical America and India
• Southern Africa: Species 5, northern Kruger National Park and escarpment of Northern Province and Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape to Komga District