The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
Habit and leaf form. Large trees; bearing essential oils. Leaves evergreen; opposite; shining, leathery; petiolate; gland-dotted; aromatic; simple. Lamina entire; narrowly elliptic; pinnately veined. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins entire.
Leaf anatomy. Stomata present; paracytic.
The mesophyll with spherical etherial oil cells.
Stem anatomy. Cork cambium present; initially superficial. Nodes unilacunar (with two traces). Internal phloem absent. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. ‘Included’ phloem absent. Xylem with tracheids. Vessel end-walls scalariform. Wood parenchyma apotracheal. Sieve-tube plastids P-type.
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in racemes. The ultimate inflorescence unit racemose. Inflorescences terminal and axillary; racemes. Flowers (bi-) bracteolate; small to medium-sized (rather small); regular; partially acyclic. The perianth acyclic and the androecium acyclic (spiralled). Free hypanthium absent.
Perianth sepaline; (5–)7(–9); free; spiralled, becoming smaller centripetally. Calyx (i.e. the perianth), (5–)7(–9); spiralled; polysepalous.
Androecium (7–)9(–13). Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another; spiralled. Androecium seemingly usually including staminodes (the outer, tepaloid members often with undeveloped anthers, and commonly with (1-)3(-4) reduced, sterile members between the fertile stamens and the style). Staminodes when present, (1–)2–3(–5); external to the fertile stamens, or internal to the fertile stamens, or external to the fertile stamens and internal to the fertile stamens; tepaloid outside, reduced-filantherous inside. Stamens 5–10 (often eight); very shortly filantherous (i.e., the inner, fertile members). Filaments appendiculate (each with a pair of short glands at the base, cf. Monimiaceae). Anthers dehiscing by longitudinal valves; introrse. Pollen shed as single grains. Pollen grains nonaperturate.
Gynoecium 2(–3) carpelled. The pistil 2(–3) celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious to eu-syncarpous; inferior. Ovary 2(–3) locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 3. Placentation apical. Ovules 1 per locule; pendulous; anatropous.
Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe (yellow, edible, with bony endocarp); commonly 1 seeded (and unilocular). Seeds copiously endospermic. Endosperm oily. Embryo well differentiated (rather large). Cotyledons 2.
Geography, cytology. Neotropical. Temperate. Chile. 2n = 42.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Magnoliiflorae; Laurales. Cronquist’s Subclass Magnoliidae; Laurales. APG 3 core angiosperms; Superorder Magnolianae; Order Laurales.
Species 1. Genera 1; only genus, Gomortega.
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’.