The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
~ Euphorbiaceae
Habit and leaf form. Large trees. Leaves deciduous; alternate; petiolate; compound; ternate, or pinnate (3(–5) foliolate). Lamina pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves stipulate. Stipules scaly (membranous); caducous.
Stem anatomy. Vessel end-walls scalariform and simple.
Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers functionally male and functionally female (rarely), or functionally male, or functionally female. Plants monoecious (rarely), or dioecious. Female flowers with staminodes (minute), or without staminodes. Gynoecium of male flowers in the form of a broad, peltate, shortly stipitate pistillode.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences axillary; many flowered thyrses. Flowers small. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk absent.
Perianth sepaline (corolla lacking); 5; 1 whorled. Calyx 5; 1 whorled; polysepalous; imbricate (in female flowers), or valvate (induplicate, in male flowers).
Androecium 5. Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another; 1 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous (and enclosed by them); very shortly filantherous (the anthers large). Anthers introrse.
Gynoecium 3 carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth. The pistil 3 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious; superior. Ovary 3 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1 (short); apical. Stigmas 3 (these elongate, linear-subulate, spreading or reflexed). Ovules 2 per locule; pendulous.
Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe (small, globose, with horny endocarp); 3–6 seeded. Seeds endospermic.
Geography, cytology. Holarctic and Paleotropical. Tropical. Tropical Asia.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Malviflorae; Euphorbiales. Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Euphorbiales. APG (1998) Eudicot; core Eudicot; Rosid; Eurosid I; Malpighiales (as a synonym of Euphorbiaceae). Species 2. Genera 1; only genus, Bischofia.
Illustrations. • Technical details.
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: 9th September 2008. http://delta-intkey.com’.
