Maytenus abbottii A.e.van Wyk

Evergreen erect or procumbent shrub, occasionally semi-scandent or tree up to 4 m high, unarmed, glabrous, with elastic threads in leaves and bark; bark greyish, scaling and cracked into fine, generally longitudinal lines. Branches green, ± compressed and 4-lined when young, becoming terete, longitudinally cracked and greyish brown to brown when mature. Leaves alternate; lamina ovate, elliptic-ovate or occasionally elliptic, (45)60-110(125) mm long, (30)40-70(80) mm wide, base cuneate, subrotund or rotund, apex acute, acuminate or occasionally obtuse, usually mucronate, margin bluntly or rarely sharply glandular-serrate or-crenate, occasionally almost entire, thick and coriaceous, dark green and shiny above, pale green and dull below; midrib slightly raised or plane above in fresh leaves, narrowly keeled or plane in dried leaves, prominently raised below in fresh and dried leaves; principal lateral veins alternate or opposite, 5-10 pairs, obscure on both surfaces or occasionally tending to be translucent below in fresh leaves, slightly raised on both surfaces in dried leaves; petiole 5-10 mm long, semiterete, deeply channelled above in fresh and dried leaves; stipules small, ± deltoid, brownish, marcescent. Inflorescences solitary, axillary, penduncles ca. 0.5-2 mm long bearing 1-4 abbreviated racemes, ca. 5-10 mm long, axis of racemes densely set with decussate, imbricate, persistent bracts, few-flowered with usually 1 or 2 flowers opening at a time. Flowers tetramerous, ca. 8-10 mm diam.; pedicels ca. 4-8 mm long, articulated at the very base (concealed by the bracts). Sepals green, unequal, the outer pair ± deltoid with the apex acuminate and prominently mucronate, venation obscure, margin sparingly ciliate, the inner pair ± suborbicular with the apex rounded or obtuse, relatively thin with venation visible, margin erose. Petals cream, broadly elliptic or elliptic-obovate, ca. 3 mm wide, 4-5 mm long, sessile, margin ± involute towards the apex, minutely erose or entire. Stamens with filaments flattened, gradually widening and dilating towards the base where they unite to form a short (ca. 0.5 mm wide) cup-shaped staminal tube (disc?), margin of tube ± apiculate between filaments, free part of filaments ca. 2-2.5 mm long, conspicuously incurved; anthers dorsifixed, not versatile, directed downwards and dehiscing by longitudinal slits, area surrounding the point of filament attachment conspicuously brownish coloured (connective?). Disc obscure and apparently restricted to the narrow strip of tissue around the base of the style. Ovary almost entirely immersed in and adnate to the disc (hypanthium?), 2-4-locular, with 2 erect collateral ovules in each locule; style elongated, ca. 1.5 mm long, terete; stigma ± peltate, circular or ± 3-sided when viewed from above. Fruit capsular, green, leathery, dehiscing loculicidally to the base, (1)2-4-locular, flattened-globose and lobed, ± globose when 1-locular, apex concave, or very rarely ± truncate, ca. 10 mm long and 15 mm diam., tipped by the persistent style and stigma and with the remains of the perianth and androecium at the base; usually a single fruit developing from a raceme. Seeds 1-2 per locule, ellipsoid, often with one flattened side when from a 2-seeded locule, smooth, orange-brown to brown, vascular bundle of the raphe with ca. 3-5 postchalazal branches, simple or occasionally branched, the main branches almost reaching the micropyle; aril white, partly enveloping the basal portion of the seed by means of finger-like extensions, surface puberulent; fleshy endosperm present; embryo erect, with cotyledons ± fleshy. Flowers and fruits collected mainly in autumn, winter and early spring.