4629.000 Gymnosporia (Wight & Arn.) Hook. f.

Trees or shrubs, usually armed with spines or spiny branchlets. Stipules free, small, caducous or 0. Leaves alternate or fasciculate (on short shoots). Flowers in cymes, usually functionally unisexual. Sepals 5(-6). Petals 5(-6), white, cream to greenish-yellow. Disk intrastaminal, single, convex to shallowly concave, entire or shallowly (4-)5-10(-12)-lobed or angled. Ovary superior. Stigma 2-3(-4)-branched. Fruit a dehiscent capsule, without outgrowths. Seeds 1-6(-8), glossy, red-brown, ± surrounded by a yellow, or more rarely a white or purple, aril.

Derivation of name: from the Greek gymnos meaning naked, spora meaning a seed, referring to the seeds that remain attached and exposed when the fruiting capsules open.

Malawi: 6 taxa.