Rotula
Content
Description
Shrub with several slender, ascending to prostrate, virgate stems.
Leaves small, sub- coriaceous, sessile or subsessile, on short lateral branchlets.
Inflorescences a small cyme terminating the branchlets and main branches.
Stamens exserted with filiform, elongate, glabrous filaments.
Fruit drupaceous, red, with a strongly 4-lobed endocarp breaking up into 4 single-seeded pyrenes at an early stage.
Distribution
SE Asia present, W Africa present, eastern Brazil present
A small genus of 2 (or 3) species occurring in SE Asia, W Africa and eastern Brazil.
Notes
Among the SE Asian woody members of Boraginaceae, Rotula is characterized by leafy short shoots markedly different from the virgate long shoots, similar to the situation in Carmona. Its most important distinguishing character from Ehretia, to which it is closely related, is the undivided style.