Pyrostria Comm. ex Juss.

Style slender, slightly longer than corolla-tube, somewhat tapered at apex; stigmatic knob ± as wide as long, 2–several-lobed, lobes only separating to reveal stigmatic surface in ♀ and hermaphrodite flowers, solid, attached to style at base or sometimes slightly recessed; ovary 2(–10 outside Africa)-locular, each locule containing one pendulous ovule. Disk annular or hemispherical; the area between the ovary and disc sometimes elongate (in Madagascan species only). Fruit yellow to red, fleshy; 2-locular fruit subspherical to heart-shaped or less often didymous, bilaterally flattened, often elaborated with extra lobes or wings; multilocular fruit lobed according to number of locules; pyrenes thinly woody to woody, narrowly obovoid to obovoid with ventral face flattened, crested around the apex, eventually dehiscing from the point of attachment back along the crest (fig. 132/22, p. 754). Seeds ± narrowly obovoid with ventral face flattened and apex somewhat crested; endosperm entire; testa finely reticulate; embryo straight or slightly curved with radicle erect; cotyledons small, set perpendicular to ventral face of seed.. Small shrubs to medium-sized trees. Leaves not deciduous, petiolate, less often subsessile or occasionally sessile; blades drying blackish brown, slate-grey or sometimes dull green, typically subcoriaceous, usually glabrous, very infrequently pubescent; tertiary nerves obscure (or rarely apparent); domatia present as glabrous to pubescent cavities or sometimes absent; stipules triangular at base, sometimes produced into a lobe or ovate to linear, persistent or readily caducous, with a few silky hairs and colleters inside. Flowers unisexual or hermaphrodite, 4-or 5-merous, borne in pedunculate umbels, sometimes with both peduncle and pedicels somewhat reduced, in dioecious species the ♀ inflorescence contains fewer flowers (often solitary) than the ♂; bracts paired, connate and entirely surrounding inflorescence in bud, persistent, with silky hairs and colleters towards base inside or rarely with dense rusty hairs. Calyx-tube ± ovoid in ♀ and hermaphrodite flowers but very reduced in ♂ flowers; limb reduced to a rim, sometimes shortly dentate or bearing unequal or less often equal lobes or sometimes (in Mauritian species) cupular. Corolla rather fleshy, usually drying dark with the lobes pale above; tube shorter than or longer than the lobes, throat densely congested with crisped or less often straight hairs, lacking a well-defined ring of deflexed hairs inside; lobes spreading, reflexed or sometimes ± erect, thickened towards the apex, sometimes shortly apiculate, upper surface of lobes usually graniculate or very finely colliculate. Stamens set at throat; filaments short, attached near the base of the anther; anthers erect, less often spreading or rarely reflexed, ovate to oblong-ovate, the dorsal face, except for the margin, covered with darkened connective tissue, sometimes extending into a short apiculum