Hybanthus Jacq.

Small gnarly shrubs or half-shrubs or herbs, rarely trees up to 8 m, in a few species the twigs thorny and microphyllous. Innovations sprouting from axillary or terminal buds, simple themselves, more or less densely covered with simple, rarely stellate hairs. Stipules generally small and mostly caducous. Leaves in a spiral or rarely (sub)opposite, often herbaceous, sometimes leathery, more or less sessile with a tapering base, to c. 15 by 4 cm, but mostly smaller to sometimes almost needle-shaped, margin entire to incised, rarely thickened underneath, the teeth sometimes glandular. Flowers generally solitary in the leaf axils, rarely in more or less reduced axillary cymes or dichasia up to several cm long or in raceme-like elongated monochasia, rarely in a terminal leafy panicle; bracts mostly present; pedicel slender, with 2 bracteoles beneath an articulation, the top curved downwards to give the flower an horizontal position. Flower 0.3-2 cm, bisexual, but rarely cleistogamous, zygomorphic. Sepals subequal, small, more or less triangular, persistent, rarely the margin with deep incisions. Petals unequal, persistent, posterior ones small and straight, middle ones longer and falcate, anterior one extended to a lip, with a claw more or less deeply saccate to shortly spurred and distinct blade often hairy above. Filaments free or seldom partly connate, sometimes short; the anterior pair with a patent gland at the base outside; anthers with rounded to elongate thecae (which rarely have an appendage at the top) and a distinct membranous connective appendage. Ovary with 3 placentas bearing 3-24 ovules; style S-shaped with anterior stigma. Fruit subtended by the dried up flower, c. 1 cm in size, subglobose before maturity, capsular with 3 leathery valves. Seeds a few mm, ellipsoid, mostly with a small caruncula.