Small trees, 3-9 m tall, usually with rounded flattish crown; branches somewhat variegate, glaucous, often densely leaved. Leaves oblong-ovate, variable in shape and size, usually 5-15 mm long and 2-8 mm broad, somewhat fleshy, glabrous or minutely hairy, shortly petioled. Flowers 1, sometimes 2-4, fascicled in the axils of the clustered leaves; pedicels 5-10 mm long, usually pubescent. Calyx tube about 5 mm long, lobes 5-7 (-9) mm long, 3-4 mm broad, oblongovate, obtuse, green, pubescent outside. Petals absent. Torus about as long as the calyx-tube, slightly elongating after anthesis. Stamens many; filaments 10-15 mm long, usually crumpled in young stages, but sometimes this condition persists even in opened flowers. Gynophore about 10 mm long, increasing to about 15 mm and somewhat thickened in fruit; ovary narrowly cylindrical, apparently glabrous. Fruits irregularly cylindrical, (1-) 3-6 cm long, 0.6-1 cm broad, markedly con¬stricted into 1-6 globose, usually 1-seeded sections, often densely pubescent; seeds about 4 mm in diam.

Type: Arabia, Yemen, Forsskhal (C).

Distribution: Trop. & N. Africa, Egypt, Sinai, Arabia, Palestine and W. Pakistan.