Nuxia gracilis Engl.

Bushy shrub, 2-3.5 m tall; ultimate branchlets striate, obscurely pubescent. Leaves usually ternate, linear-oblanceolate or oblanceolate-oblong, usually over 3 times as long as broad, mostly 2-8 mm broad and 1.5-4.5 cm long, narrowing slightly to a subobtuse apex, cuneate from about the middle into a short petiole, glabrescent or somewhat pubescent along the midrib beneath; margins distinctly serrate at least in the upper half. Inflorescence a compound cyme, flowers pedicelled, 8 or more in a terminal umbel-like cluster, branches of the inflorescence pubescent, angled, the lower primary branches long, usually over 1 cm long, and usually only once di-or trichoto-mously branched, the secondary shorter, usually under 1 cm long. Pedicels pubescent and scaly, 2-5 mm long. Bracts linear-spathulate or club-shaped, the outer 2.5 mm long, inner among flowers, 1-5 mm long (shorter or longer than pedicels). Calyx light brown or green, sometimes glutinous, broadly rounded at the base, pubescent with short spreading hairs without (obscurely ribbed), lined within with long appressed ascending hairs which are produced beyond the mouth of the calyx and show like a fringe in the sinuses and along the margins of the lobes, lobes erect, obtuse or subacute. Corolla white, circumscissilely deciduous near base; tube enclosed in calyx, scaly within; lobes broadly oblong, 2.5 mm long, 1.75 mm broad in the suborbicular concave apical portion which reflexes over the calyx, densely pilose at the base within. Filaments with clusters of long pointed hairs at the base. Capsule densely hirsute with appressed ascending hairs, slightly exserted from the persistent calyx, 2-valved, valves splitting septicidally, 4 subacute erect valves showing above the calyx after dehiscence.