Barbeyaceae
Barbeyaceae
Dioecious tall shrubs or small trees. Leaves opposite, decussate, exstipulate, shortly petiolate, simple, bicolor, olive green glabrous above, densely tomentose and ivory-white beneath, entire, lanceolate to oblong-elliptic to narrow ovate, up to 50 x 20 mm. Flowers small, in axillary cymes, the male in dense clusters, the female in lax cymes Sepals 3-4 petals absent Male flowers with the sepals c 3 x 2 mm, densely silvery-pubescent to tomentose on the outside sparsely pubescent on the inside, reticulately veined, the reticulation more prominent on the inner face stamens 6. 12, with short filaments Female flowers densely silvery- tomentose on the outside, the sepals increasing in size with age and wing-like in fruit, the pubescence becoming thin and the sepals/wings becoming prominently reticulate with age the wings up to 20 mm at maturity ovary superior, unilocular with a single pendent ovule, style linear, slightly thickening into two papillate ribs forming the linear stigmatic region. Fruit compressed, ellipsoid, dry, indehiscent. pericarp membranous and with prominent sutures.
Includes only a single species Barbeya oleoides Schweinf.