Multidentia Gilli

Shrubs, small trees to 12 m. tall or sometimes pyrophytic subshrubs, mostly glabrous, unarmed; stems often lenticellate. Leaves mostly restricted to new growth, paired or rarely ternate, petiolate; blades chartaceous to coriaceous, typically glaucous beneath, with a conspicuous network of finely, or less often coarsely, reticulate tertiary nerves; domatia present as tufts of hair or absent; stipules sheathing at base, pubescent within, provided with a linear, somewhat keeled lobe. Flowers (4–)5(–6)-merous, usually medium-sized, borne in pedunculate cymes, usually at nodes from which the leaves have fallen, except in pyrophytic species; bracteoles linear to lanceolate, small. Calyx chartaceous or coriaceous; limb cupular, truncate, repand, dentate or cupular below and lobed above. Corolla normal or coriaceous and drying wrinkled; tube cylindrical, subequal to lobes or occasionally much longer, glabrous outside, with a ring of deflexed hairs inside and usually rather sparsely pubescent at throat; lobes reflexed, rounded or obtuse, thickened towards apex. Stamens set at throat; anthers partly or fully exserted, oblong-ovate or oblong, with dark coloured connective tissue on dorsal face except for margin, apiculate or not. Ovary 2-locular, each locule with one pendulous ovule; style slightly longer than or less often up to twice as long as corolla-tube, slender; stigmatic knob ± as broad as long or less often elongate, ribbed, hollow to mid-point, apex cleft ± to mid-point when mature. Disk glabrous. Fruit a 2-seeded drupe, large, subglobose, laterally compressed, often somewhat didymous, often lenticellate or rarely small and didymous (in the West African M. pobeguinii (Hutch. & Dalz.) Bridson), crowned by persistent calyx-limb; pyrenes thickly woody, broadly ellipsoid, sometimes curved, truncate at point of attachment, with line of dehiscence extending from point of attachment to apex then arching on either side back towards point of attachment but stopping short of it, very strongly rugulose (except in M. pobeguinii) see fig. 132, p. 754. Seeds with endosperm entire; testa finely reticulate; embryo slightly curved; radicle erect; cotyledons about 1/3 the length of the embryo, set perpendicular to the ventral face of the seed.