Compilation
Strychnos leiosepala

Deciduous shrub or small tree, (0·30)1–6(10) m. high, sometimes flowering on first year shoots (with small leaves) on old fire–cut stumps. Trunk 4–15 cm. in diam. (sometimes Huted), branched from below; bark pale to dark grey or brown, shallowly fissured, not or sometimes thinly corky, often scaly, sometimes blackened by bush fire, not lenticellate; wood hard, whitish, without bark–islets. Branches sometimes deeply ringed at nodes, grey or brown, not lenticellate, often with curved or straight spines; branchlets glabrous or pubescent, green or yellow–green when fresh, green or brown and often sulcate when dry, sometimes terminating in a straight spine. Leaves on main axis sometimes ternate; petiole 2–10 mm. long, glabrous or pubescent; lamina coriaceous also when living, young thinner and papyraceous when dry, very variable in shape and size, orbicular, elliptic, narrowly elliptic, ovate, or obovate, 1–2(3) x as long as wide, sometimes comparatively wider or narrower on main axis, usually comparatively wider on flowering branches, 1·4–9·5 x 1·2–7·5 cm., rarely larger, up to 13·5 x 7·5 cm., emarginate, rounded to acute and often apiculate, sometimes acuminate (mostly in trees along water courses), or rarely abruptly acuminate at the apex, cuneate, less often rounded, or sometimes on main axis subcordate at the base, often with hair pockets in the angles of the main veins beneath, glabrous or pubescent on both sides (in sucker shoots and seedlings of plants with few hairs more hairy, smaller and cordate); 1–3 pairs of distinct secondary veins from above the base curved along the margin. Inflorescence terminal, seemingly umbellate, congested or less often not, 1·5 x 1·5–5 x 3·5(6–5 x 7) cm., mostly many–flowered. Flowers 5–merous. Sepals pale green, connate at the base, narrowly triangular to linear, equal, subequal, or sometimes unequal, 2–6(10) x as long as wide, 1·5–6 x (0·3)0·5–1·2 mm., acuminate or subulate at the apex, minutely ciliate at the base or not, outside mostly sparsely pubescent at the base and glabrous at the apex or entirely glabrous, never with an even indumentum all over, inside glabrous and usually with some hairs at the base or sometimes minutely pubescent, without colleters. Corolla when mature 0·8–2·7 x as long as the calyx, .4–5(3·8–6) mm. long, pale green, greenish, or less often white, creamy, or yellow, glabrous or sparsely pubescent outside, inside with a narrow entire white–penicillate corona at the mouth of the tube; tube 1·2–2·7 x as long as the lobes, 2·5–3(2·2–4·4) x 2–3(3·5) mm., urceolate or campanulate, often somewhat contracted in the throat; lobes triangular, 1·2–1·8 x as long as wide, 1·2–2 x 1–1·5 mm., acute, erect or suberect. Stamens included; filaments glabrous, 0·7–1·5 x as long as the anthers, inserted at 0·4–0·8 mm. from the base of the corolla; anthers oblong or elliptic, 1·2–1·4 x 0·8–1 mm., ciliate with a villose or sometimes pilose indumentum all around by which they are coherent. Pistil pubescent, rarely obscurely so, glabrous just below the stigma, 1·8–2·4(3) mm. long; ovary ovoid, broadly ovoid, or globose, (1)1·2–1·6(2) x 1–1·3 mm., 1–celled; stigma subsessile, oblong. One large globose basal placenta with about 60–120 ovules. Fruit yello\\v or when nearly mature yellow–green or green, large, hard, resembling an orange or a grapefruit, globose, often slightly shining, with granular skin, 7–11(15) cm. in diam., with about 10–100 seeds, immature often slightly pear–shaped. Wall rather thick, hard, 2–5(8) mm., thick, thickened inside above the pedicel. Pulp yellow, edible. Seed ochraceous in fruit, very pale brown when dried up, darkening in rotten fruits, obliquely ovate or elliptic, flattened, more or less plano–convex, usually irregularly curved, about 1–2 x as long as wide, 11 x 6 x 2–23 x 18 x 5 mm., mostly smooth, very shortly pubescent. Testa thick.