Shrubs up to 0.7 m tall, rigidly bushy, single-stemmed with a rough warty bark at base, growing in drift sand. Branches glabrous, rough, dirty-brown, devoid of leaves, variously bent. Branchlets dichotomous, very short, minutely puberulous between the leaves, densely clothed with leaves. Leaves 2.8-5 mm long, 2.5-4 mm broad, ovate or elliptic, acute, mucronate, sessile, sub-amplexicaulate, sub-complicate, greyish-green, glabrous, quite thick, opposite, decussate, crowded, erect-spreading; margins thick, cartilagenous, minutely ciliolate; abaxial surface with a few scattered gland dots. Inflorescence terminal, sessile, normally twin, without conspicuous involucral leaves. Bract one, leaf-like, 3 mm long, 2.3 mm broad, orbicular, acute, mucronate, ciliolate, glabrous, gland-dotted, sub-complicate, sessile. Bracteoles two, 3 mm long, 1.6 mm broad, oblanceolate, acute, mucronate, glabrous, 1-2 gland-dotted; midrib quite thick; margins pellucid, ciliate. Calyx lobes five, 4 mm long, 2.3 mm wide, elliptic, acute, mucronate, greenish and thickened above, glabrous; margins ciliate, broadly translucent. The lobes are more bract-like than usual being deeply divided. Petals five, 5.2 mm long, overall; limb 2 mm long, 1 mm broad, oblanceolate, acute, glabrous, recurved, apex with one or two minute hairs; claw 3.2 mm long, 1.3 mm broad, with a dense erect bushy transverse beard above, upper part of the translucent margins densely crisped ciliate, midrib fringed with hairs. Staminodes five, vestigial, 0.2 mm long, deltoid or completely absent. Filaments five, becoming 1.5 mm long, subulate, glabrous. Anthers five, before anthesis 1.3 mm long, 0.8 mm broad, cuneiform-ovoid, orange-yellow; apical gland minute. Pollen 50 µ long, 25 µ diam., obloid. Disc exceeds and closes over the ovary at first, green, exudes nectar. Stigma 0.7 mm diam., globose, green. Style becoming 1.3 mm long, erect, glabrous, sub-5-angular. Ovary 5-carpellate, 1 mm diam., apices pubescent. Fruit 5-carpellate; carpels 6-8 mm long, glabrous below, puberulous towards the apex; horns divided into two to each carpel, 0.5 mm long, obtuse. Seed 5.5 mm long, 2.5 mm broad, black, shining; aril white without any trace of black.
More
Rigid, single-stemmed, well-branched shrub, up to 1.2 m tall, leafy near branch tips. Leaves opposite, in 4 rows, ovate, sessile, with recurved tips. Flowers terminal, solitary or paired, white, petals with well-developed, transverse hairs across throat, sepals white, green-tipped, margins ciliate.
Like E. burchellii but leaves somewhat pungent and fruit horns short and bifid.
Home