Scutia (DC.) Comm. ex Brongn., nom. cons.

Small trees or shrubs, rarely scandent, glabrous or nearly glabrous, unarmed or armed with straight or recurved thorns; branchlets usually angular. Leaves opposite or subopposite, ovate or obovate, often variable, obscurely dentate, obtuse at both ends, mucronate; petioles short; stipules triangualr, usually deciduous. Cymes condensed, axillary, solitary or in umbellate fascicles. Flowers pentamerous, bisexual. Calyx lobes valvate in bud, deltiod. Petals deeply obcordate or bilobed, cucullate or flat. Anthers dorsifixed, ovate, 2-celled. Disc lining the calyx cup, rather thin. Ovary 2-3-celled, sunk in the disc; style very short, slightly lobed. Drupes nearly globose, with 2-3 seeds enclosed in free endocarpous stone; stones embedded in a thin fleshy pulp at maturity, irregularly dehiscent.

Tropical America, S. Africa and Indo-China; 4 species, 1 in India.

List of Lower Taxa