A. RADCLIFFE-SMITH

A deciduous unarmed graceful shrub or small tree up to 7 m. Branches usually reddish-brown. Petioles adaxially grooved, narrowly winged, 2-5 mm long. Leaf-blade obovate, 2.5-6 x 1.5-3.5 cm, apex subacute, obtuse or rounded, cuneate or rounded at the base, thinly chartaceous, lateral nerves 4-7 (-9) pairs, looped within the margin, scarcely raised above, raised beneath, tertiary nerves reticulate. Stipules triangular-lanceolate, 1-2 mm long, acute, subentire, membranous, chestnut, soon deciduous. Flowers fragrant. Male flowers: pedicels up to 5 mm long; sepals dimorphic, the outer narrower than the inner, 1-1.5 mm long, acute or rounded, pale greenish-yellow; disc-glands fleshy, angular, tuberculate; stamens 2 mm long, anthers minute, pale yellow; pistillode 1.5-2 mm long. Female flowers: pedicels up to 1 cm long, but usually only 2-4 mm long; sepals ± as in the ♂; disc shallowly 5-lobed, 1 mm across; ovary ovoid-subglobose, 1 mm diam.; styles 3, recurved, bifid, 1 mm long. Fruit depressed-globose, 2-3 mm long, 3-5 mm diem., smooth, green at first, later becoming white and somewhat fleshy. Seeds 2 x 1.5 mm, shiny, chestnut-brown.

Fl. Per.: April-July. Fr. Per.: May-August.

Type: India, Tamilnadu, Nandaradah, 23 Oct. 1794, Klein in Hb. Wild. No. 17964 (holotype, B-WILLD.; IDC Microfiche No. 7440 - 29/1298: I. 4!).

Distribution: Throughout Tropical Africa and extending through Asia to Japan and Timor. The ssp. melanthesoides (F. v. Muell.) Webster occurs in New Guinea and Australia. In dry country on stony banks from c. 3000-4500'/900-1400 m.