Description:

• Woody climbers, erect shrubs or small evergreen trees
• Leaves alternate, distichous, simple, entire, penninerved, veins often prominent underneath; petiole short, articulated at base; dried leaves finely tubercled by cystoliths in mesophyll; stipules 0
• Inflorescences axillary, fasciculate in catkin-like racemes; bracts broadly ovate to orbicular, caducous
• Flowers bisexual, regular, small, solitary or in groups of 2 or 3 in axil of bract, sweet-scented
• Calyx minute, annular
• Petals 4 or 5, free, valvate in bud, may be taken for sepals due to reduction of sepals
• Stamens 4 or 5, opposite petals; anthers 2-thecous, introse, longitudinally dehiscent
• Disc with 4 or 5 fleshy lobes alternating with stamens
• Ovary superior, fusiform, free or almost so, 1-locular; ovule solitary, unitegmic and tenuinucellar, anatropous, pendulous from apex of a central placenta; style none or short; stigma entire or shallowly lobed
• Fruit a drupe; pericarp rather thin; mesocarp ± fleshy-juicy; endocarp woody or crustaceous
• Seeds large, conforming to the drupe; hilum basal, in a funnel-shaped cavity; embryo straight, terete, embedded in rich, oily endosperm, nearly as long as seed or shorter, with 3 cotyledons
• x = 10 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Opiliaceae
  • Bentham: 345 (1862), under Olacineae
  • Valeton: 1 (1886), under Opiliaceae (name conserved)
  • Engler: 231 (1889)
  • Engler: 171 (1909)
  • Sleumer: 33 (1935)
  • Hiepko: 161 (1982)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 9, species 28; pantropical; 5 genera are only known from the eastern Old World (tropical Asia, Malesia and Australia); 2 genera occur in tropical Africa
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 1

References:

• BENTHAM, G. 1862. Olacineae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• ENGLER, A. 1889. Olacaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,1
• ENGLER, A. 1909. Opiliaceae africanae. Botanische Jahrbücher 43
• HIEPKO, P. 1982. A revision of Opiliaceae II. Opilia Roxb. Willdenowia 12
• SLEUMER, H. 1935. Opiliaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 2,16b
• VALETON, T. 1886. Critisch overzicht der Olacineae Benth. & Hooker f. Proefschrift ter verkrijging van den graad van doctor, Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen

Resources:

• Opiliaceae genus: Opilia