Trees or shrubs with branches ± angled, terete or wrinkled (in dried state), sometimes prickly. Leaves ovate, ovate-oblong, oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate, rarely scale-like, obtuse, retuse, mucronate to acuminate, sometimes glaucous beneath, margin ± revolute, texture thin to thick. Flowers solitary, axillary or in axillary racemes. Calyx accrescent, sometimes almost completely covering the drupe. Petals 6, rarely 5. Fertile stamens 3-5, opposite the petals; staminodes several, sometimes 2-fid and hairy at the base; anthers appendaged or not. Drupe subglobose to ± oblong.

55 species, mainly distributed in Africa and Madagascar but also in Himalayas, S.E. Asia and the Pacific islands.

Lower Taxon

• Olax nana Wall.