Colubrina nicholsonii A.e.van Wyk & Schrire

Evergreen scandent shrubs to lax trees up to 8 m high; stem up to 250 mm in diameter, occasionally armed with simple or variously branched spinescent lateral shoots; bark of mature bole smooth or minutely fissured in a grid-like pattern. Branchlets terete, greyish brown, moderately brownish-pubescent, becoming glabrous later, often reduced to axillary spines; internodes (5-)30-60(-70) mm long. Leaves alternate, rarely subopposite; petiolate; stipulate; eglandular; lamina brochidodromous, elliptic to elliptic-ovate, (20-)40-100(-150) mm long, (10-)30-60(-70) mm wide; base cuneate to subrotund; apex acute or acuminate with a distinct mucro up to 1 mm long; margin mostly entire and undulate when fresh, also sometimes indistinctly crenate especially when dry; subcoriaceous; dark green, shiny above, pale green below with the midrib and secondary veins sparingly to densely brownish-pubescent; midrib flush with the surface above, becoming narrowly grooved when dry, prominent below; principal lateral veins alternate or opposite, 5-10 pairs, slightly raised above, prominent below; tertiaries slightly raised on both surfaces; petiole (3-)8-12(-16) mm long, semi-terete, channelled above, usually brownish-pubescent; stipules conspicuous, lateral, occasionally semi-intrapetiolar, lanceolate, 4-7 mm long, c. 2 mm wide, rufo-sericeous, caducous with a conspicuous scar remaining on the branchlet. Inflorescences cymose, few-flowered, axillary and pedunculate, often brownish-pubescent; the flowers opening sequentially from the base; peduncle 4-25 mm long; bracts minute, deltoid, caducous. Flowers 5-merous, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite, c. 4 mm wide, cream in colour; pedicels up to 4 mm long; receptacle hemispherical with the calyx and androecium borne at the rim. Sepals valvate in bud, deltoid, spreading, c. 2.5 mm long, c. 2 mm wide, densely pubescent dorsally, glabrous and medially carinate ventrally, deciduous along with the rim of the receptacle. Petals absent. Stamens alternisepalous, c. 2 mm long, erect with the anthers incurved; filaments free; anthers 2-thecous, 4-sporangiate, dorsifixed, versatile, latrorse, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Disc thick and fleshy, c. 2.5 mm in diameter, glabrous except for a central depression around the styles which is minutely pubescent. Ovary 3-locular, entirely immersed in and adnate to the disc and receptacle; ovules anatropous and sub-sessile on basal placentae, 1 per locule; styles (stigmatic lobes?) 3, free, tapering off terminally, c. 1 mm long; stigma indistinct. Fruit capsular, pendent when mature, faintly tricoccous with the receptacle and disc surrounding and adhering to more or less the basal third of the fruit, c. 8 mm long and 12 mm diam.; exocarp and mesocarp coriaceous with a distinct hump of spongy tissue on the dorsum of each coccid; endocarp hard and dehiscing into three dry endocarpids; stipe and basal part of the capsule (receptacle) persistent. Seeds 1 per locule, c. 7 mm long and 6 mm wide, oblong-obovate, dihedral ventrally and strongly convex dorsally, exarillate; hilum narrowly elliptic; testa hard and shiny; embryo flat, with fleshy, broadly elliptical cotyledons, with base mostly cordate and apex retuse, radicle shortly projecting; endosperm abundantly present. Flowering mainly in summer.