Guioa Cav.

Shrub to tree. Branchlets usually sericeous to hirsute. Indumentum consisting of simple solitary hairs and indistinct glandular hairs. Leaves paripinnate, 1-9-jugate, without pseudostipules; petiole pulvinate; rachis terete to distinctly winged; petiolules pulvinate. Leaflets usually subsessile, opposite (to alternate), often punctate; glandular hairs usually few near midrib, indistinct, white (Guioa hirsuta: distinct, red); upper surface usually darker than lower; lower surface smooth to whitish papillate, domatia usually present as sacs or pockets. Inflorescence a thyrse, (ramiflorous to) axillary (to pseudoterminal), usually few-flowered; cymules cincinnate (to dichasial). Pedicels articulate. Flowers zy-gomorphic, seemingly bisexual, but presumably actually unisexual. Sepals 5 (or 6), margin usually with glands; inner 3 sepals with a petaloid margin. Petals (4 or) 5 (or 6), usually distinctly clawed; (auricles and) scales usually present and then usually crested; petal between two adjacent large sepals usually with reduced blade and scales. Disc interrupted or uninterrupted, lobed, smooth, glabrous. Stamens 8 (or 7); anthers basifixed in cleft, dehiscense latrorse. Pistil: ovary 3-lobed, 3-locular, smooth, often on short gy-nophore; ovules 1 per locule; stigma sessile, pyramidal, longitudinally grooved; style elongating in fruit. Fruit an obcordate loculicidal capsule with 3 lobes, of which one to all develop; stipe narrow and high to broadly obconical and indistinguishable; lobes laterally flattened, obtuse (to sharp); exotesta coriaceous, thin; endotesta with pocket for radicle. Seeds orbicular to obovoid, black; arillode completely enveloping seed, apically open and lobed, basally with a rim from which usually a long folded pseudo-funicle joins the basal corner of the fruit, seed dangling on the pseudo-funicle in open fruit; hilum oval.