Trees or shrubs, sometimes climbing. Stipules glabrous inside. Inflorescence of umbellate or branched cymes. Flowers 4-5-merous. Calyx tube broad; the limb reduced to a rim. Corolla white or yellow; lobes reflexed. Style usually at least twice as long as the corolla tube; pollen-presenter cylindric.
Ovary 2-locular. Derivation of name: from the Greek psydrax, blister or bump, perhaps referring to the bumps on the leaf upper surface above the domatia or alternatively to the warty seeds of some species. Worldwide: 100 species in the Old World tropics. Zimbabwe: 6 taxa. |