Erythrophysa transvaalensis I.Verd.

Shrub or small tree, deciduous. Stems slender, up to 12 ft. tall. Branches reddish-brown, smooth, shiny, alternate or occasionally subverticillate. Leaves imparipinnate, 10-24 cm long, glabrous, appearing at ends of branches on new growth only; rhachis winged, with the wings about 2 mm wide; leaflets about 15 pairs 1-2 cm apart, subopposite or opposite, lanceolate, 2-7 cm long, 3-8 mm wide, entire or occasionally some unequally lobed near the base, sometimes narrowed into an oblique winged petiolule. Inflorescence paniculate, terminal, leafless or with a few leaves at the base; peduncles divaricate, up to 3 cm long, thinly patently hairy, with the flowers more or less secund; bracts early deciduous, variable in size, 4-14 mm long, somewhat obovate, rounded at the apex or abruptly acuminate, thinly pilose and with red-stalked glands round the margin and a few glands sometimes scattered on both surfaces; pedicels pilose, about 6-9 mm long, jointed near the base, those of the male flowers early deciduous at the joint, leaving a conspicuous dark-red circular scar. Flowers polygamous. Sepals 5, imbricate, thinly pilose dorsally, with red clavate glands on the margins and a few scattered glands on the dorsal surface; two outer sepals green suffused with red, oblong, 1.5 cm long and 1.2 cm broad; 3 inner obovate-oblong, 1.5 cm long and up to 1.4 cm broad, exposed surface only usually suffused with red. Petals 4, adaxially arranged, cream or greenish, sometimes entirely suffused with red, with a pilose claw 1.2 cm long, produced at the apex into 2 erect, somewhat hammer-shaped appendages 1.5 mm long and expanded into a spreading oblong, cordate petaloid lamina 5 mm long, the basal lobes of which are partly fused with the appendages and sometimes themselves producing small appendages, pilose dorsally and with a stalked red gland usually present in the sinus of the appendages. Disc unilateral, produced adaxially. Stamens 8, declinate; the adaxial ones inserted on the produced disc; filaments in male flowers up to 2.2 cm long, pilose; anthers dorsifixed, 1.5 mm long; pollen green. Ovary stalked, papillose, 3-angled, 3-chambered; style simple, 3-angled at the base; ovules 2 in each chamber. Fruit inflated, strongly 3-angled, about 8 cm long and 5 cm in diameter, stalked at the base (stalk about 2 cm long) with the style usually persisting at the apex as a mucro 1.7 cm long. Seeds 1-2 in each loculus, globose, slightly compressed, smooth, blackish-purple, 2.2 cm in diameter.