Diospyros mweroensis F.White

Small bushy semideciduous tree up to 10 m. tall; bark smooth, shed in large patches; slash bright yellow.. Leaves drying dark brown above, pale yellowish brown beneath, oblanceolate, oblong, oblanceolate-oblong or obovate-oblong, 2.5-10.5 cm. long, 1.2-3.5 cm. wide, usually shortly and abruptly acuminate at the apex, rarely acute or obtuse, cuneate to rounded at base, densely strigulose-setulose on nerves and veins beneath; lateral nerves in 5-9 pairs, prominent beneath, arcuate and anastomosing near the margin; tertiary nerves and venation forming a lax reticulum, slightly prominent beneath; petiole up to 5 mm. long.. Male flowers sweetly scented, subfasciculate or in shortly pedunculate cymes, 6-9-flowered, in axils of fallen leaves or on older branchlets; pedicels 2-3 mm. long, densely setulose-pubescent; calyx at first closed in bud, later cyathiform, 5 mm. long, 6 mm. wide, strigulose-tomentellous with dark brown hairs; margin subtruncate, with 4 broadly triangular lobes scarcely 1 mm. long; corolla cream, coriaceous, subrotate, 7-8 mm. long, fulvous-strigulose-tomentellous; corolla-tube 1.5-2 mm. long; corolla-lobes 4, tongue-shaped; stamens ± 50, far exserted, up to 6 mm. long; filaments up to 2.5 mm. long, inserted on the corolla-tube, setulose; anthers narrowly lanceolate, apiculate, with connective sparsely strigulose on abaxial surface.. Female flowers in 1-5-flowered fascicles on older leafless branchlets; pedicels 5-6 mm. long, tomentellous; bracts leafy, 9 mm. long, 5 mm. wide, soon falling; calyx cyathiform, 8 mm. long, brown velvety tomentellous outside, pale tomentellous inside, very shallowly and irregularly lobed at the apex; corolla cream, rotate, 1.3 cm. long; corolla-tube 4 mm. long and wide; corolla-lobes 4, ovate-tongue-shaped, 9 mm. long, 6 mm. wide, tomentellous outside where exposed in bud, glabrous where overlapped in bud; staminodes ± 16, 4 mm. long, inserted on the corolla-tube with densely setulose antherodes; ovary 3 mm. long and wide; common style 3 mm. long, densely strigulose; stigmas 4, fleshy, glabrous, irregularly lobed, 2 mm. long.. Fruit yellow at first, black when ripe, 2.5 cm. long, 2.2 cm. wide, apiculate, glabrous.. Seeds 8, black, ± date-shaped, 1.6 mm. long, 6 mm. wide, 4 mm. thick.. Fruiting calyx 1.4-1.7 cm. long, 2-2.4 cm. wide, glabrescent in patches outside, persistently and minutely strigulose inside.. Fig. 2/3.