Compilation
Phialodiscus verschuerenii

Tree, probably dioecious, usually 6–9 m. but sometimes reaching 30 m. tall, with a dense crown; bark grey-brown smooth, thin, with warts and horizontal ridges; slash white, pale red or brown with white streaks; young twigs golden-hairy, glabrescent, dark grey. Leaves reddish when young, drying bright green or brownish; petiole up to 4 cm. long; rhachis 0.6–10 cm. long; petiolules 1–2 mm. long; leaflets in (1–)2–4(–5) pairs, elliptic, oblong, obovate or oblanceolate, the upper pair 3–26 cm. long, 1.2–9.5 cm. wide (but in West Africa up to 30×13 cm.), the lowest either similar (usually when there are only 2 pairs) or as small as 2×1.2 cm., acuminate at apex and tapering or sometimes rounded at the extreme tip, the midrib visible as a raised line on the upper surface, glabrous apart from some hairs on the veins plus tufts in the nerve axils; lateral veins in 6–10(–12) pairs, curving and ending well inside the leaflet margin, usually whitish beneath, glabrous. Inflorescences borne in axils of current leaves, 5–10 cm. long, flowers singly inserted or in cymose groups; pedicels 1–5(–10 in fruit) mm. long, pubescent. Flowers whitish to yellow, sweet-scented; calyxdivided ± halfway, lobes 2 mm. long, 1 mm. wide; petals rhomboid in outline, 1.5 mm. long, 1.5–2 mm. wide, scale bilobed, shaggy hairy. Stamens 6–8; filaments 4.5 mm. long, the basal part strikingly white hairy. Capsule reddish, (2–)3(–4)-gonous and -locular, 1.7–3 cm. long, 1.9–3 cm. wide, glabrescent, the angles acute or with wings up to 2 mm. broad; style and sepals persistent; endocarp pink with yellow margins, glabrous or nearly so. Seeds, dark brown or black, ovoid 1.5–2 cm. long, 6–8 mm. wide; aril bright yellow, up to 1 cm. long. Fig. 7.