Thymelaea

A genus of about twenty herbs (some annual) and evergreen shrubs, confined to the Old World and mainly natives of the Mediterranean region and Asia. It is allied to Daphne, differing chiefly in the fruit, which is dry and usually enclosed in the persistent receptacle. The ‘thymelaia’ of the ancient Greek writers was probably Daphne gnidium, and the generic name Thymelaea, as originally used by Miller, included both the present genus and the daphnes.