Sonneratia L.f.

Trees, evergreen, glabrous, columnar or spreading, surrounded by pencil-like pneumatophores arising from long, shallowly buried horizontal roots. Leaves opposite, borne in a single plane; lamina simple, margins entire, leathery. Inflorescence 1-3 flowered clustered at apex of ultimate, pendulous branchlets. Flowers actinomorphic, 4-8-merous, opening at night; floral tube shallowly campanulate, at fruit maturity persistent, partly surrounding fruit or expanded and saucer-shaped with fruit fully exposed; sepals 4-8, adaxially red or green, thick, leathery; petals red or white, caduceus, vestigial or absent. Fruit berry-like, globose, leathery, indehiscent, crowned by style bae. Seeds numerous, embedded in foul smelling pulp.

Worldwide: Species 9 in East Africa to South East Asia, Australia, New Guinea and the western Pacific.

Mozambique: 1 taxon.