The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
Alternatively Cardiopterideae (Cardiopteridaceae) Blume, Peripterygiaceae F.N. Williams
Including Leptaulaceae
Habit and leaf form. Scandent herbs; laticiferous. Climbing; stem twiners. Leaves alternate; spiral; membranous; petiolate; non-sheathing; simple. Lamina dissected, or entire; when dissected, palmatifid; palmately veined; cross-venulate; cordate. Leaves exstipulate; without a persistent basal meristem.
General anatomy. Plants with laticifers. The laticifers in leaves.
Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Vessel end-walls horizontal; simple.
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite, or andromonoecious, or gynomonoecious, or androdioecious, or gynodioecious, or polygamomonoecious (? — hermaphrodite or ‘polygamous’).
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes (more or less scorpioid). The ultimate inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences axillary; branched, more or less scorpioid cymes. Flowers ebracteate; ebracteolate; very small; regular; (4–)5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk absent.
Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; (8–)10; 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx (4–)5; 1 whorled; gamosepalous; regular; imbricate. Corolla (4–)5; 1 whorled; gamopetalous; imbricate; regular.
Androecium (4–)5. Androecial members adnate (epipetalous); free of one another; 1 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens (4–)5; inserted midway down the corolla tube, or in the throat of the corolla tube; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate (colporoidate).
Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 1 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior. Ovary unilocular; 1 locular. Styles 2; dissimilar, free. Stigmas 2. Placentation apical. Ovules in the single cavity 2; pendulous.
Fruit non-fleshy; indehiscent (flat); a samara (2-winged). Dispersal unit the fruit. Seeds endospermic. Embryo well differentiated (but tiny).
Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.
Physiology, biochemistry. Aluminium accumulation not found.
Geography, cytology. Paleotropical and Australian. Temperate to sub-tropical. Southeast Asia and Australia, Leptaulus in tropical Africa and Madagascar.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Tenuinucelli (? — gamopetalous, with adnate androecium). Dahlgren’s Superorder Santaliflorae; Celastrales (?). Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Celastrales. APG 3 core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Asteranae; campanulid; Order Aquifoliales.
Species 8 (including Leptaulus). Genera 2; Peripterygium (Cardiopteris, Leptaulus (only recently assigned here).
This description does not yet account for the recently included Leptaulus.
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’.