Didymosalpinx Keay

Erect or scrambling entirely glabrous shrubs (save for inside corolla-tube) with some lateral branches modified into spines which are supra-axillary and held at right-angles. Leaves opposite, petiolate; stipules slightly connate at the base, acute or acuminate-subulate. Flowers rather large, hermaphrodite, 5-merous, axillary or supra-axillary, solitary on both sides of the node, sometimes unilaterally subterminal; pedicels well developed. Calyx-tube cylindric; limb very shortly tubular with 5 small erect or leafy lobes. Corolla-tube funnel-shaped, strongly nerved in the midpetaline axes, pilose inside, glabrous outside; lobes with contorted aestivation. Anthers sessile, included; pollen grains simple. Ovary unilocular, with 2 opposing parietal placentas or sometimes ± joined to form a ± 2-locular ovary; style expanded into a massive club of pithy tissue, with 2 apical stigmatic lips. Fruit globose or ellipsoid, with thin walls, crowned with the persistent calyx-limb. Seeds 8–16 per fruit, lenticular, ± 1 cm. wide, embedded in a white tissue and forming a compact mass. A small genus of 4 closely related species described from Africa, 2 of which occur in the Flora area. A further undescribed plant also occurs but its status is uncertain. N. Hallé has excluded D. parviflora Keay from the genus.