Gummy Gardenia

resiniflua: with a flowing resin

Shrub or small tree. Bark smooth, pale grey, somewhat peeling. Leaves in whorls of 3 on short, stiff side branchlets, obovate, 2-8 cm, sparsely roughly hairy above except when young, densely velvety below; apex shortly pointed; base running down the petiole. Flowers solitary in the upper leaf axils, white, c. 3 cm long and 3 cm in diameter. Fruit yellowish-brown, ovoid to almost round, c. 15 long, densely covered in short hairs, crowned with the persistent calyx lobes.

Botswana, DRC, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Limpopo, South Africa.