[3] Common names for B. madagascariensis include jobiapototra, tsimiranjana, tsivavena, vahilava, voalava, voankatanana, voantalanina, voatalanina and votalanina (all Malagasy), and mfukufuku (Swahili), mfurugudu (Shambala, Tanzania) and bwa kato (Seychelles).

[2][4][5][6] Brexia is a shrub or small tree, usually 3–7, but occasionally up to 10 m high with many branches, that are smooth with ridges early on but later become cylindrical.

The leathery leaf blades are between 3+1⁄2 and 50 cm long and 2 and 11 cm wide, with large differences in shape, narrowly inverted egg-shaped to linear with teeth or even spines along the edges in young growth, while on mature shoots they may be narrow to broadly inverted egg-shaped and the edge toothy to entire, with a rounded to indented tip, and wedged along the leaf stem or rounded at the base.

The five fleshy petals are greenish or creamy white, 1+1⁄4–1+3⁄4 × 7⁄8–1+1⁄4 cm, broadly inverted egg-shaped, with a blunt tip.

These two genera however differ in many details of the sporogenesis, gametogenesis and fertilisation, such as the ripe pollen which is two-celled in Escallonia and three-celled in Brexia.

[8] Brexia is a deviant genus, that was assigned early on to the Brexiaceae or Brexioideae, together with two other enigmatic, monotypic genera, Ixerba and Roussea.

Roussea is most related to Carpodetus, Cuttsia and Abrophyllum, that are nowadays combined in the family Rousseaceae, the sister group of the Campanulaceae, and together representing the basic branches of the Asterales.

In 1902 William Hemsley described Thomassetia seychellarum based on a specimen from the Seychelles,[7] but this name was later synonymised with Brexia madagascariensis.

[12] B. madagascariensis is a widespread species found in coastal areas in Madagascar (Sava, Atsinanana, Analanjirofo, Vatovavy-Fitovinany, Atsimo-Atsinanana, and Anosy regions), Mozambique, Tanzania (including Zanzibar), and Comoro Islands.

[13][14] The populations of Brexia that occur at higher elevations in the Seychelles are sometimes regarded as a distinct subspecies B. madagascariensis ssp.

Common brown lemurs Eulemur fulvus were seen fouraging from Brexia flowers in the early morning.

[15] B. madagascariensis grows in coastal vegetations on a range of soil types such as coral, sand, loam or coarse rocky ground, in places like the edges of saline water swamp forest, mangrove swamps, evergreen shrubland and other forest types near the sea.

[16] The fruit can float in sea water for many months and the numerous dark seeds within remain viable.