Description:

• Caulescent, often suckering, dioecious
• Trunk slender, fibrous, occasionally ventricose, rarely dichotomously branched, closely ridged with transverse leaf scars
• Leaves costapalmate; petiole ± as long as lamina, with spinous or sclerotic margins, base persistent; hastula distinct on both sides, lamina half-folded, recurved in upper half
• Flowers in axillary, pendulous panicles subtended by tubular spathes
• Male flowers in somewhat stout, fastigiate spadices, spirally arranged in ± 8 vertical, densely imbricate rows; flowers in 3s in a compressed, rhomboid, hairy cavity, subtended by a short, wide bract below; sepals 3, connate basally; petals 3, connate, forming a short tube, lobes ovate, concave; stamens 6, with short filaments; ovary 0
• Female flowers in alternate or fastigiate spadices, in 4 vertical, densely imbricate rows, coarser and larger than males, placed in rhomboid cavities bulging with hairs, subtended by a short semicircular, truncate bract; sepals and petals equal or subequal, short, ovate, ribbed, coriaceous; staminodes 3, connate into a membranous ring; ovary subglobose, obscurely 3-lobed, 3-locular, with 1 ovule in each locule; stigmas 3, minute
• Fruit sessile or on a short pedicel, globose, hard, shiny, 1-seeded
• x = 18

Nomenclature:

• Hyphaene Gaertn.
  • Gaertner: 28, t. 10, f. 2 (1788)
  • Wright: 30 (1897)
  • Wicht: 31 (1969)
  • Dransfield: 21 (1986)
  • Uhl & Dransfield: 228 (1987)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 10, Africa, Arabian Peninsula and Mascarene Islands
• Southern Africa: Species 2, Namibia, Botswana and lowveld areas of Northern Province, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal