Herbs or undershrubs, annual or perennial, monoecious, usually clothed with stellate
tomentose hairs. Leaves spirally arranged, petiolate, simple, entire or lobed, often plicaterugose
or plicate-bullate, rarely glabrous, often with 2 glands near petiole-apex beneath the
base of leaf-blade; stipules caducous. Inflorescences short, dense, stalked or sessile racemes,
axillary or terminal, bisexual with male flowers towards base and female flowers towards upper part. Male flowers: calyx closely adherent in bud, splitting into 5 lobes; petals 5, usually equal
to sepals; disc inconspicuous, divided into small glands, united with petals and slightly adnate
to the staminal column; stamens 4 - 15; filaments connate into a central column and branching
off in 1 - 3 verticillate layers; anthers oblique, basi-dorsifixed, introrse; thecae parallel, contiguous,
longitudinally dehiscing; pistillode absent. Female flowers: calyx campanulate, 5-lobed, valvate,
persistent; petals 5, similar to sepals, usually much smaller than in male, sometimes setaceous,
rarely obsolete; disc annular with 5 short wide prominent glands alternating with the petals;
ovary on short gynophore, 3-locular; styles 3, erect, bifid; branches entire, spreading, red,
rarely purplish red or orange; ovules solitary in each locule. Fruits at first fleshy, later capsular,
3-loculed, dehiscing septicidally and partly loculicidally into 3 bivalved cocci, usually tinctorial
and red, purple or purplish white when ripe, tuberculate, clothed with stellate hairs or with flat
pectinate or subentire scales; seeds 3, obovoid, angular, carunculate, often tuberculate;
sarcotesta incomplete, thin, smooth or somewhat rugose; embryo flat; endosperm copious,
fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat.
NE. tropical Africa, Mediterranean region, West Asia to India, Thailand, Indo-China and
Java, ca 12 species; 4 species in India.
Literature.
BALAKRISHNAN, N. P. (1973). Studies in Indian Euphorbiaceae - V: The genus
Chrozophora Neck. Bull. Bot. Surv. India 15: 1 - 7. PRAIN, D. (1918). The genus Chrozophora. Bull.
Misc. Inform. Kew 1918: 49 - 120. PAX, F. & K. HOFFMANN (1912) Euphorbiaceae - Acalypheae-
Chrozophorineae. In Engl., Das Pflanzenreich IV.147.VI (heft 57): 1 - 142. VAN WELZEN, P. (1999).
Revision and phylogeny of subtribes Chrozophorinae and Doryxylinae (Euphorbiaceae) in Malesia and
Thailand. Blumea 44: 411 – 436.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Ovary and fruits lepidote, never stellate-pubescent
2
b. Ovary and fruits stellate-pubescent, never lepidote
3
2a. Leaves not much longer than broad; ripe carpels reddish purple
