Polysphaeria Hook.F.

Glabrous or hairy shrubs or small trees with supra-axillary branches. Leaves usually thinly coriaceous with a characteristic divaricate venation, usually oblong-elliptic to lanceolate, less often more rounded; stipules triangular, acuminate or aristate with raised mid-line. Flowers sessile or rarely pedicellate, usually small in sessile or pedunculate bracteate clusters; bracts and bracteoles forming a complicated pattern of primary bracts, secondary bracts often supporting triads of flowers, and bracteoles often several per flower usually joined to form a cup at the base of the calyx. Calyx-tube campanulate or turbinate; limb-tube cup-or bowl-shaped, obconic or sometimes tubular, occasionally covering the corolla in bud, truncate or 4–5-toothed, persistent. Corolla-tube narrowly funnel-shaped or cylindrical, densely hairy at the throat; lobes 4–5, strictly contorted, overlapping to the left (as seen in bud), ovate to oblong, acuminate, spreading. Stamens 4–5, inserted in the corolla-tube, the filaments very short; anthers linear, fixed at the back near the base, included or partly exserted, sometimes minutely apiculate. Disc small but evident, fleshy. Ovary 2-locular; ovule solitary in each locule, pendulous; style filiform, exserted, shortly pubescent or hairy, or apparently glabrous in one imperfectly known species, with filiform or rarely ± ellipsoid undivided or slightly to distinctly bifid stigma. Fruits pea-like with rather tough epicarp, 1–2-locular, 1–2-seeded. Seeds subglobose to plano-convex with striate-sulcate testa and very ruminate endosperm.