4503.000 Monadenium Pax

Small trees, shrubs or perennial herbs with milky latex. Stems and branches succulent. Stipules 0 or modified as glands or spines. Leaves alternate, fleshy. Inflorescences axillary with sessile cyathia in dichotomously branching cymes, rarely solitary; bracts paired, persistent. Cyathium with glands forming an entire rim, notched on the lower side, surrounding 5-fringed lobes. Male flowers in 5 groups, bracteolate. Female flower stalked; ovary 3-locular; styles 3 with 2-fid stigmas. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule, exserted through the notch in the glandular rim, dehiscent. Seeds with a cap-like pale yellow caruncle, rarely ecarunculate.

Worldwide: Over 70 spp, occurring in eastern tropical Africa from Somalia in the north to the northern province of South Africa and west into Angola

Botswana: 1 taxon.