The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
Alternatively Balanopsidaceae
Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; non-laticiferous and without coloured juice. Leaves (pseudo-) whorled, or alternate; petiolate; non-sheathing; simple. Lamina pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins entire, or dentate.
Leaf anatomy. Stomata present; anomocytic.
Adaxial hypodermis present. Lamina dorsiventral.
Stem anatomy. Cork cambium present; initially superficial. The cortex containing cristarque cells, or without cristarque cells. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Xylem with fibre tracheids; with vessels. Vessel end-walls oblique; scalariform, or scalariform and simple.
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants dioecious. Gynoecium of male flowers vestigial, or absent.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers solitary (female), or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’ (male); when aggregated, in catkins (i.e. when male). Inflorescences of male flowers comprising catkins, the female flowers solitary. Flowers (both male and female) bracteate (the aggregated males with one subtending scale, the solitary females with many imbricating, involucral bracts).
Perianth vestigial (male calyx represented by a single unilateral scale), or absent (female).
Androecium in males (2–)5–6(–12). Stamens (2–)5–6(–12); filantherous to with sessile anthers (subsessile). Anthers basifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; latrorse to introrse (latero-introrse). Pollen grains aperturate; 3–4(–5) aperturate; colpate; 2-celled.
Gynoecium 2–3 carpelled. The pistil 1 celled, or 2–3 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior. Ovary imperfectly 2–3 locular. Styles 2; free. Stigmas 2 (long, subulate). Placentation basal. Ovules 2 per locule; ascending; anatropous.
Fruit non-fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe. The drupes with separable pyrenes, or with one stone (with 1–2 1-seeded pyrenes). Seeds endospermic. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight.
Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.
Physiology, biochemistry. Alkaloids absent (one species).
Geography, cytology. Sub-tropical to tropical. Queensland, New Caledonia, Fiji. N = 21.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Rosiflorae; Balanopales. Cronquist’s Subclass Hamamelidae; Fagales. APG 3 core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Rosanae; fabid; Order Malpighiales.
Species 12. Genera 1; only genus, Balanops.
This description is offered for casual browsing only. We strongly advise against extracting comparative information from it. This is much more easily achieved using the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting specified attributes, summaries of attributes within groups of taxa, geographical distribution, genera included in each family, classifications (Dahlgren; Dahlgren, Clifford, and Yeo; Cronquist; APG), and notes on the APG classification.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 25th November 2009. http://delta-intkey.com’.