Sericanthe Robbr.

Shrubs or sometimes small trees (outside Flora area one suffrutescent species). Leaves mostly (and in Flora area always) provided with domatia as small tufts of hairs without apparent excavation; bacterial nodules often present on the underside of the leaf-blade, situated either along the midrib and down the petiole or (not in East Africa) scattered; stipules sheathing, overtopped by 2 awns, with silky hairs and colleters inside. Inflorescences axillary and opposite, with 1 or sometimes more flowers. Flowers (5–)7–8(9)-merous, subtended by 2–4 bracteolar cups, each with 2 unequal pairs of awns. Calyx ellipsoid in bud, either open (not in East Africa), or closed, with the tip obtuse to apiculate, completely covering the young corolla, deeply splitting between some lobes when the flower opens. Corolla white, salver-shaped, usually (in East Africa always) with silky indumentum outside; lobes spreading, contorted to the left. Stamens inserted at the throat, with basifixed anthers and with the connective broadly flattened. Disc annular. Ovary 2-locular, each chamber having 1 pendulous placenta attached to the septum; placenta with (1–)2 ovules; style 2-lobed, hairy or glabrous, exserted. Fruit mostly orange, sometimes red, nearly spherical, at first crowned by the persistent calyx which often withers as the fruit ripens, bilocular; endocarp papery, shiny inside. Seeds either 1 per chamber and hemispherical or 2 per chamber and shaped like a quarter of a sphere; seed-coat brown and striate; hilar scar apical-adaxial, forming a ± elliptic plane, with a diameter of at least half the seed height; endosperm horny, entire; embryo straight, attaining half the diameter of the seed; cotyledons subcircular, placed in the centre of the seed, equalling the laterally oriented radicle.