Bussea Harms

Shrubs or more usually trees, unarmed and always with brown or rusty indumentum on young shoots and also inflorescences. Leaves usually opposite or subopposite, but varying sometimes to alternate (although not in East Africa), bipinnate; stipules small, subulate; specialized glands restricted to petiole and rhachis absent; leaflets opposite (always so in East Africa), or alternate, eglandular. Inflorescences of terminal panicles with the flowers densely and racemosely arranged along the branches; rarely and casually (in B. massaiensis) the inflorescence reduced to a simple raceme; bracts small, falling as or before the flowers open. Flowers hermaphrodite. Sepals 5, imbricate, the inner ones with hyaline erose margins. Petals 5, the upper one smaller than the rest, all with rusty indumentum in middle and on claw. Stamens 10; filaments rusty-tomentose at base, eglandular; anthers dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Ovary free, subsessile, densely brown-tomentose; ovules 2–3; style ± clothed like the ovary; stigma enlarged and peltate. Pods erect, linear-oblanceolate, ± compressed, not winged, elastically dehiscing into 2 recurving woody valves each of which has a conspicuous longitudinal groove down the middle or (in B. eggelingii) is concave. Seeds 1–3, longitudinal; funicle short; endosperm absent.