The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
Habit and leaf form. Trees and shrubs; non-laticiferous and without coloured juice. Mesophytic. Leaves evergreen; alternate; spiral; leathery, or ‘herbaceous’; petiolate; non-sheathing; not gland-dotted; often sweet tasting; simple. Lamina entire; pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves exstipulate; without a persistent basal meristem.
Leaf anatomy. Stomata present; mainly confined to one surface (abaxial); generally paracytic.
Lamina dorsiventral (equipped with protruding, unicellular water-secreting structures, swollen and bladderlike to the outside, but constricted below where they enter the leaf through a rosette of epidermal cells).
Stem anatomy. Cork cambium present; initially superficial. Nodes unilacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Xylem with tracheids; with vessels. Vessel end-walls scalariform. Wood parenchyma apotracheal.
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite, or polygamomonoecious (rarely). Pollination entomophilous.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’, or solitary (less often); in racemes, in spikes, and in panicles. The ultimate inflorescence unit racemose (usually), or cymose (?). Inflorescences terminal, or axillary; usually racemes, less often panicles ‘etc’. Flowers bracteate; bi- bracteolate; regular; usually 5 merous; cyclic; pentacyclic to polycyclic. Free hypanthium absent.
Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 6–8 (rarely), or 10, or 15; 2 whorled, or 3 whorled; isomerous. Calyx (3–)5; 1 whorled; gamosepalous (basally connate); regular; persistent; imbricate, or valvate. Corolla (3–)5, or 10(–11); 1 whorled, or 2 whorled; gamopetalous (the tube short); imbricate; regular.
Androecium (4–)5, or 10, or 15(–100) (i.e. to ‘many’). Androecial members branched, or unbranched; free of the perianth, or adnate (usually attached to the corolla tube); markedly unequal; free of one another, or coherent (sometimes in bundles); when bundled 1 adelphous, or 5 adelphous, or 10 adelphous (? — the bundles alternating with the corolla lobes); 1–4 whorled. The androecial bundles when bundled, alternating with the corolla members. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens (4–)5, or 10, or 15–35 (or more?); reduced in number relative to the adjacent perianth (rarely), or isomerous with the perianth to polystemonous. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits. Pollen grains aperturate; 3(–4) aperturate; colporate (the colpi short); 2-celled.
Gynoecium 2–5 carpelled. Carpels isomerous with the perianth, or reduced in number relative to the perianth. The pistil 2–5 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; inferior (usually), or partly inferior (rarely). Ovary 2–5 locular. Epigynous disk present (often, around the style), or absent (?). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1; capitate (or lobed). Placentation axile. Ovules 2–4 per locule; funicled; pendulous; non-arillate; anatropous; unitegmic; tenuinucellate. Endothelium differentiated. Embryo-sac development Polygonum-type. Polar nuclei fusing prior to fertilization. Antipodal cells formed; 3 (uninucleate); not proliferating; ephemeral. Synergids elongated or beaked.
Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe (usually), or a berry; without fleshy investment. The drupes with one stone (with 2–5 locules). Fruit 2–5 seeded (one per locule). Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Cotyledons 2 (very short). Embryo curved.
Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.
Physiology, biochemistry. Not cyanogenic. Alkaloids present, or absent (usually). Iridoids detected; ‘Route I’ type (normal). Proanthocyanidins present; cyanidin and delphinidin. Flavonols present; quercetin. Ellagic acid absent (Symplocos). Saponins/sapogenins present. Aluminium accumulation demonstrated (by all?).
Geography, cytology. Sub-tropical to tropical. Widespread tropical and subtropical, absent from Africa. X = 11–14.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Tenuinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Corniflorae; Cornales. Cronquist’s Subclass Dilleniidae; Ebenales. APG 3 core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Asteranae; Order Ericales.
Species 500. Genera 2; Symplocos, Cordyloblaste.
Illustrations. • Technical details: Symplocos (Lindley). • Technical details: Symplocos. • Symplocos sinica (cf. S. paniculata): Bot. Reg. 710, 1823.
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’.
