It comprises five species distributed in Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[1] Arthur Wallis Exell the British botanist who first formally described the genus named it after the stalks (μίσχος, míschos, in Greek) that bears its reproductive (γυνή, gunḗ, in Greek) structures.

In the flowers, the receptacles form columns that bear stamens at their base and carpels at their apex.

The flowers have 3-40 cylindrical or oval carpels that are densely covered in fine downy hairs.

The fruit can be round, ellipsoidal or oblong and either hairless or covered in fine downy hairs.