The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs. Leaves alternate; leathery; subsessile, or sessile; non-sheathing; simple. Lamina entire; conspicuously asymmetric to not conspicuously asymmetric; pinnately veined; cross-venulate; slightly decurrent. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins entire.
General anatomy. Plants with ‘crystal sand’, or without ‘crystal sand’.
Leaf anatomy. Extra-floral nectaries present. Stomata present; anomocytic and paracytic.
Adaxial hypodermis present. Lamina dorsiventral. The mesophyll with sclerencymatous idioblasts; containing calcium oxalate crystals. The mesophyll crystals raphides (and commonly crystal sand).
Stem anatomy. Cork cambium present; initially deep-seated. Nodes tri-lacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Vessel end-walls oblique; scalariform, or scalariform and simple. Vessels without vestured pits. Wood parenchyma apotracheal.
Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Plants hermaphrodite.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in racemes, or in umbels, or in corymbs. The terminal inflorescence unit racemose. Inflorescences axillary; umbelliform or compactly corymbiform racemes. Flowers bracteate; bi- bracteolate (the bracteoles persistent or deciduous); small; regular; 4 merous, or 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic, or pentacyclic. Free hypanthium absent.
Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 8, or 10; 3 whorled (Tetramerista), or 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx 4 (in two series, in Tetramerista), or 5; 2 whorled (Tetramerista), or 1 whorled; polysepalous (the members with numerous glandular pits adaxially); regular; persistent, or not persistent; imbricate. Corolla 4, or 5; 1 whorled; polypetalous; imbricate (scarcely longer than the sepals); regular; persistent, or deciduous (?).
Androecium 4, or 5. Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another to coherent (the subulate filaments flattened, perhaps shortly coherent at the base); if coherent, 1 adelphous; 1 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 4, or 5; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; alternating with the corolla members; inflexed in bud (the anthers ultimately inverting to become extrorse). Anthers dorsifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; extrorse. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; (constricti-) colporate.
Gynoecium 4 carpelled, or 5 carpelled. Carpels isomerous with the perianth. The pistil 4 celled, or 5 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary 4 locular, or 5 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1 (punctate or minutely lobed). Placentation basal to axile. Ovules 1 per locule; ascending; epitropous; anatropous; bitegmic.
Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a berry; 4 seeded, or 5 seeded. Seeds copiously endospermic. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight (basal).
Geography, cytology. Paleotropical and Neotropical. Tropical. Western Malaysia (Tetramerista and southern Venezuela (Pentamerista).
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli, or Tenuinucelli (?). Dahlgren’s Superorder Theiflorae (?); Theales (?). Cronquist’s Subclass Dilleniidae; Theales. APG (1998) Eudicot; core Eudicot; Asterid; unassigned to Euasterid I or Euasterid II; Ericales. Species 4. Genera 2; Pentamerista, Tetramerista.
Hutchinson 1959, Maguire 1972.
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’.