Dicranolepis Planch.

Thymelaeaceae, B. Peterson (University of Göteborg). Flora of Tropical East Africa. 1978

Habit

Shrubs or small trees

Branches

Branches spreading horizontally, young twigs glabrous to pubescent

Leaves

Leaves alternate, petiolate; blade oblong or elliptic, usually unequal-sided, long-acuminate, basally cuneate to obtuse, chartaceous, glabrous or pubescent, pinnately nerved

Inflorescences

Inflorescence axillary

Flowers

Flowers 5-merous, subsessile or shortly pedicelled, solitary or 2–4 or clustered in the leaf axils, bracteate

Calyx

Calyx-tube cylindric, usually elongate, ± pubescent, sometimes glandular; lobes 5, usually pubescent outside

Corolla

Petals 5, shorter or longer than the calyx-lobes, often divided nearly to the base, entire, laciniated or irregularly shaped at the top, white or very pale yellow

Stamens

Stamens 10, in two whorls in the throat of the calyx-tube; episepalous filaments slightly longer than the alternisepalous; anthers included or exserted

Pistil

Ovary shortly stipitate, 1-locular, glabrous or pubescent; disc cup-shaped, ± deeply lobed, fleshy or membranous; style slender; stigma clavate or capitate, included or exserted

Fruits

Fruit drupe-like, spherical or elongate, brown, red or orange, enclosed in the persistent base of the calyx-tube

Seeds

Seed with thin testa often fixed to the hard pericarp.