Plants shrubs or vines, without latex. Leaves opposite, stipules membranous or absent; blades entire. Inflorescences axillary or terminal cymes; bracts small, sepal-like. Flowers 5-merous, heterostylous; corollas yellow to white, funnel-shaped, lobes imbricate in bud; stamens as many as the corolla lobes and alternating with them, inserted on lower part of the corolla tubes, included or exserted; anthers latrorse; ovaries superior, 2-celled, with 2 ovules per cell; stigmas 2x dichotomously branched. fruits bilobed, flattened capsules, loculicidally dehiscent, 4-valved; seeds flattened.
The family Gelsemiaceae was first described in 1994. It includes three genera. The description above draws largely on the description of Mostuea in the Flora of Somalia, that being the only genus in the family to grow in Africa. It is also represented in Madagascar and South America.
Only one species of Mostuea grows in Somalia, Mostua microphylla. It is not known from Somaliland. No species are known to grow in Somaliland.
References
Struwe, K., V.A. Albert, & B. Bremer. (1994) Caldistics and family level classification of the Gentianales. Cladistics 10: 175-206.
Thulin, M. 2006. Mostua in M.Thulin (Ed.), Flora of Somalia, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK.
Wikipedia (2021) Gelsemiaceae. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelsemiaceae. Accessed 15 December 2021