Ellipanthus Hook.f.

Shrubs or small trees. Leaves unifoliolate. entire. Flowers in short axillary, racemes or clusteres, 5-merous, protandrous, bisexual or unisexual, and then plants dioecious; bracts caducous. Sepals valvate, outer surface pilose. Petals free, creamy white. Stamens 10, twice as long as petals, united at the base, inner whorl staminodial, much smaller; tube glabrous outside, pubescent within. Carpel 1, pubescent; ovary flattened, ovoid; style short; stigma disc shaped to bilobed. Fruit densely tomentose, yellowish to brownish when ripe, apex shortly pointed, stipitate, with persistent calyx. Seed 1, flattend; arillode yellowish orange, deeply lobed covering the basal part; endosperm thick, hard.

Tropical Africa, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, continental S.E. Asia and Malesia; ca 10 species, 2 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves glabrous on both surfaces; inflorescence axillary raceme

1. Ellipanthus calophyllus

b. Leaves tomentose on under surface; inflorescence glomerulous

2. Ellipanthus tomentosus

List of Lower Taxa