The Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae
| The Genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae | |
Including Pseudosindora Symington
Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; without tendrils; unarmed. Phyllotaxy distichous, or spiral. Leaves compound; pinnate; imparipinnate, or paripinnate. Leaflets many per leaf, or few per leaf; opposite or sub-opposite, or alternate; with a strong, continuous marginal nerve; petiolulate; with markedly twisted petiolules, or with petiolules not noticeably twisted. Stipules absent or early caducous or very inconspicuous; neither leafy nor spinescent. Stipels absent.
Inflorescence and floral morphology. Flowers hermaphrodite; not pentamerous throughout; departing from pentamery in the calyx and in the corolla, or in the calyx, in the corolla, and in the androecium (rare); white or green; in simple racemes, or in panicles; distichous, or not distichous (rare: Pseudosindora). Bracts absent at anthesis. Bracteoles present; small, not enclosing the flower buds; absent at anthesis; not valvate; free. Hypanthium absent. Calyx polysepalous; covering the rest of the flower in bud; more or less regular; 4 partite; imbricate (but subvalvate). Corolla present (rare), or absent; including greatly reduced petals. Petals 1–4 (vestigial). Clawed petals absent. Disk present and conspicuous. Androecium of fewer than ten parts (rare), or of ten parts, or of more than ten parts (rare); members all free of one another; members all more or less equal in length, or members markedly unequal; without staminodia. Fertile stamens 10, or 8–13 (rare). Anthers attached well above base of connective. Dehiscence longitudinal. Ovary sessile or subsessile, or stipitate; free (on disc). Ovules few.
Fruit, seed and seedling. Fruit a two-valved pod; not becoming woody; not drupaceous; not winged; without markedly twisting or enrolling valves. Seeds non-endospermic; arillate; with a straight or slightly oblique radicle; amyloid-positive. Cotyledons flat; epigeal.
Transverse section of lamina. Leaves with conspicuous phloem transfer cells in the minor veins. Druses absent from the mesophyll. Mesophyll secretory cavities (gland-dots) common; epithelium-lined. Adaxial hypodermis absent. Leaf girders common (the veins transcurrent). Laminae dorsiventral. Mesophyll without unaligned fibres or sclereids. Minor veins mainly with abundant accompanying fibres.
Leaf lamina epidermes. Epidermal crystals present; prisms. Simple unbranched hairs common; smooth. No compound or branched eglandular hairs seen. Capitate glands not seen. Hooked hairs not seen. Cassieae-type leaf pseudo-glands not seen. Expanded and embedded hair-feet absent. Basally bent hairs present, or absent. Adaxial interveinal epidermal cell walls straight in optical section, or markedly sinuous in high-focus optical section; conspicuously pitted, or not conspicuously pitted. Stomata adaxially very rare. Abaxial stomata predominantly paracytic. Abaxial epidermis not papillate. Abaxial interveinal epidermal cell walls markedly sinuous in high-focus optical section; conspicuously pitted in optical section; staining normally with safranin.
Wood anatomy. Wood without septate fibres; not storied; with normal intercellular canals; without traumatic canals. Intervascular pits very small, or medium to large.
Pollen ultrastructure. Tectum punctate; smooth punctate, or puncticulate. Length of colpi greater than one half pole to pole distance (without a margocolpus).
Cytology, geography, etc. Basic chromosome number, x = 12. 2n = 24. 25–30 species. Tropical America, tropical and southern Africa. Widely cultivated.
Tribe. Detarieae.
The interactive key provides access to the character list, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting specified attributes, and summaries of attributes within groups of taxa.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1993 onwards. The genera of Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae and Swartzieae: descriptions, identification, and information retrieval. In English and French; French translation by E. Chenin. Version: 19th October 2005. http://delta-intkey.com’.