The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
Habit and leaf form. Trees and shrubs; resinous. Leaves alternate, or opposite; ‘herbaceous’ to leathery; petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted; simple. Lamina entire; oblanceolate, or oblong, or obovate (or spathulate); pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves exstipulate.
Stem anatomy. Vessel end-walls simple.
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants androdioecious.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary. Flowers small; regular; cyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present; extrastaminal; of separate members (these contiguous).
Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 whorled; polysepalous; imbricate. Corolla 5; 1 whorled; polypetalous; imbricate; regular. Petals more or less clawed.
Androecium 5–15. Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another; 1–3 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5–15; isomerous with the perianth, or diplostemonous, or triplostemonous; oppositisepalous; alternating with the corolla members, or both alternating with and opposite the corolla members. Anthers sagittate; tetrasporangiate. Pollen shed as single grains. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate.
Gynoecium 3 carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth. The pistil 3 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior. Ovary 3 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles free (short, bifid). Placentation axile. Ovules 1 per locule; pendulous; non-arillate; anatropous.
Fruit non-fleshy; dehiscent; a capsule. Capsules loculicidal (bony). Fruit 3 seeded. Seeds endospermic. Embryo weakly differentiated. Cotyledons 2 (poorly differentiated).
Geography, cytology. Neotropical. Guayana Highlands.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli (?). Dahlgren’s Superorder Santaliflorae (?); Celastrales (?). Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae (?); Celastrales (?). APG (1998) family of uncertain position at the highest group level. Species 5. Genera 1; Tepuianthus.
This description is very inadequate, and taxonomic assignment is very uncertain.
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’.