The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
~ Cunoniaceae
Habit and leaf form. Small, slender trees; leptocaul. Mesophytic, or xerophytic. Leaves large (about 1 m long); alternate; spiral; petiolate; non-sheathing; compound; pinnate. Lamina pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves stipulate (the stipules large, reniform, palmately veined). Lamina margins of the leaflets serrate to dentate. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem.
Leaf anatomy. Hairs present. Urticating hairs present.
Minor leaf veins without phloem transfer cells.
Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring (?). Vessel end-walls scalariform and simple.
Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in panicles. Inflorescences axillary. Flowers regular. Hypogynous disk present; of separate members (scales, alternating with the stamens).
Perianth sepaline; 4(–5); joined; 1 whorled. Calyx 4(–5); gamosepalous (connate into a tube as long as the lobes). Calyx lobes about the same length as the tube. Calyx valvate (thick).
Androecium 8, or 10. Androecial members free of the perianth; all equal; free of one another; 1 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 8, or 10; diplostemonous; filantherous (the filaments more or less tumid below). Anthers dorsifixed; versatile; dehiscing via pores to dehiscing via short slits to dehiscing via longitudinal slits (the initial apical pores becoming slits); introrse. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate.
Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior. Ovary 2 locular. Styles 2 (these filiform, geniculate above); free; apical. Stigmas 2. Placentation axile, or apical. Ovules 5–7 per locule; pendulous; non-arillate; anatropous; bitegmic.
Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe. The drupes with separable pyrenes (two-pyrened). Seeds non-endospermic. Cotyledons 2 (these large).
Seedling. Germination cryptocotylar.
Physiology, biochemistry. Not cyanogenic. Iridoids not detected. Proanthocyanidins probably present. Ellagic acid absent. Aluminium accumulation not found.
Geography, cytology. Tropical. Northeast Australia.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Rosiflorae; Cunoniales. Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Rosales. APG (1998) Eudicot; core Eudicot; Rosid; Eurosid I; Oxalidales (as a synonym of Cunoniaceae). Species 1. Genera 1; only genus, Davidsonia.
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: 10th April 2008. http://delta-intkey.com’.