Oncoba Forssk.

Shrubs or small trees; stem and branches often spiny. Leaves deciduous, alternate, crenate-serrate, penninerved; petiole not thickened apically; stipules caducous. Flowers bisexual or polygamous (andromonoecious), Camellia-like, white, scented, solitary, axillary or terminal on short side shoots, pedunculate. Sepals 3–5, ± united at the base, ± imbricate, the outer ones gradually larger than the inner ones. Petals (5–)8–15, imbricate in bud, subequal. Stamens very numerous; filaments filiform, anthers linear to oblong, basifixed, longitudinally dehiscent, apiculate by the ± elongate connective. Ovary (wanting in ♂ flowers) sessile, unilocular, the 6–8(–10) placentas much protruding into the cavity, multi-ovulate; style columnar; stigma either peltate, i.e. formed by short subglobular and ± connate stigmatic branches (the number of the placentas), or radiate, i.e. the short stigmatic branches free, each with a capitate stigma. Fruit globular, indehiscent, 1-locular, many-seeded, smooth or with slight longitudinal ridges, the pericarp woody. Seeds embedded in an edible pulp, with a smooth bony testa.