Pachystigma Hochst.

Subshrubby herbs or small shrubs, glabrous or less often pubescent. Leaves opposite, rarely in whorls of 3, shortly petiolate; stipules connate, hairy within, often at length deciduous. Flowers fairly small in axillary usually opposite cymes or fascicles, often few-flowered; bracts and bracteoles present. Calyx-lobes 5, triangular or linear, erect, obtuse, ± leafy, sometimes exceeding the corolla-tube. Corolla green or greenish yellow to greenish white; tube cylindrical, with a ring of deflexed hairs inside and the throat usually slightly hairy; lobes reflexed, often apiculate. Stamens inserted at the throat, the anthers exserted. Ovary 3–5-locular with one pendulous ovule per locule; style slender, exserted, the stigmatic knob cylindrical, smooth or ± sulcate, obscurely 5-lobed. Fruit globose or obovoid, with 2–5 pyrenes, crowned by the persistent calyx-limb. Pyrenes ± woody. Fig. 132/4, p. 754.