Entry From
Flora of Tropical East Africa, page 1, (1976) Author: B. VERDCOURT
Names
PSYCHOTRIA holtzii (K. Schum.) Petit [family RUBIACEAE], in B.J.B.B. 36: 90 (1966). Types: Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Mogo Forest [Sachsenwald], Engler 2137, 2161 & 2186 (all B, syn. †); same locality, Holtz 301/02 (EA, neo.!)
Information
Shrub 0.6–3 m. tall, with slender stems, densely pubescent with whitish or ferruginous hairs when young, later glabrescent, the hairs short and spreading, rather stiff on the old shoots. Leaf-blades small, narrowly elliptic to oblong, 1–4 cm. long, 0.5–1.5 cm. wide, acute or subobtuse at the apex, cuneate at the base, discolorous, glabrous above and beneath, or with some hairs bordering domatia in the nerve-axils and at the base of the midrib beneath; nodules mostly 2, situated at the base of the midrib; petiole 1–2.5 mm. long, densely pubescent with hairs similar to those on the stem; stipules prominently bilobed, becoming blackish, rather rigid and brittle but not persistent; the triangular base 1–2 mm. long, pubescent, the lobes filiform-acuminate, 1–4 mm. long. Flowers heterostylous, 5-merous, in sessile few-flowered subumbellate inflorescences ± 0.5 cm. long; pedicels 1–3 mm. long, glabrous or slightly pubescent. Calyx-tube obconic, 0–75 mm. long, ± pubescent; limb very short, 0.5–0.75 mm. long, ± glabrescent; lobes very narrowly triangular or linear, ± unequal, 0.5–2.5(–4) mm. long, glabrous or ± pubescent, occasionally bifid. Disc fleshy. Corolla white; buds hairy at apex; tube 3–3.5 mm. long; lobes oblong-elliptic, 1.7–3 mm. long, ± 1 mm. wide, thickened and with a small appendage at the apex. Stamens with filaments 2 mm. long in short-styled flowers, almost obsolete in long-styled flowers. Styles 2 mm. long in short-styled flowers, 3.5 mm. long in long-styled flowers; stigma-lobes 0.5–0.7 mm. long. Drupes crimson-red, with 2 pyrenes, subglobose, ± 5 mm. in diameter, glabrous, crowned by the persistent calyx; pyrenes with dorsal surface slightly ribbed. Seeds semiglobose, 2.5–3 mm. long and wide, 1.5–2.8 mm. thick, the ventral face with a rather broad fissure; albumen not ruminate.