Euclea L.

Trees, shrubs or subshrubs, dioecious,usually evergreen. Leaves alternate, subopposite or subverticillate, coriaceous, entire or margin sometimes crenulate, often with scales beneath. Flowers usually in simple or branched raceme-like inflorescences or rarely solitary (not in our area), the male usually larger than the female. Calyx 4-5-lobed, shallowly cyathiform or patelliform, not accrescent. Corolla campanulate, 4-5-lobed (very shallowly 5-8-lobed in subgen. Rymia ) usually to beyond the middle. Stamens 10-30, basically 2 opposing and 2 alternating with each corolla-lobe but there are many modifications of this arrangement; anthers slightly exserted or at least clearly visible at the throat, lanceolate or narrowly oblong, usually strigulose, often dehiscing at first by large elliptical apical pores which later become longitudinal slits; filaments usually shorter than the anthers; rudimentary ovary usually very reduced, with or without styles. Disk fleshy, fimbriate, sometimes undulate. Staminodes absent or very reduced in female flowers. Ovary globose, hairy or covered with peltate scales; locules usually 4-6 and 1-ovulate or occasionally 2-3, incompletely septate and 2-ovulate; styles 2-3, free or united below, often equalling the ovary, usually glabrous, ending in a slightly expanded bilobed stigmatic surface. Fruit a 1(-3)-seeded globose berry up to 1 cm. diameter, mostly smaller, with thin mesocarp. Seed subglobose with 3 radiating lines from the apex; embryo with cotyledons bent at right-angles to the radicle which is entirely surrounded by an invagination of the testa.