Bussea Harms

Trees or occasionally shrubs, unarmed. Young shoots and inflorescences with conspicuous brown indumentum. Leaves usually mostly opposite or subopposite but frequently some not so, bipinnate, without specialised glands on petiole and rhachis; pinnae up to 8 pairs; leaflets in 3–15 pairs, alternate; stipules small, subulate. Flowers in fairly dense racemes which are aggregated to form terminal panicles or rarely are single and terminal; bracts often concave; sepals imbricate, with scarious margins; petals unequal, the upper one smaller than the rest, all ± spathulate with a brown tomentum on the outside of the claw and extending up the middle of the blade. Ovary subsessile, curving upwards towards the end, brown-tomentose with 2–3 ovules. Fruit pods 7–12 cm long, linear-oblanceolate, woody, erect, brown-tomentose especially when young, dehiscing into 2 recurving valves. Seeds 1–3, up to 2.2 cm long, oblong, compressed, elongated longitudinally in the pod.

Worldwide: Five species in Africa and Madagascar.

Zambia: 1 taxon.