 | The Families of Flowering Plants |  |
Habit and leaf form. Trees and shrubs. Mesophytic. Leaves evergreen; opposite; leathery; petiolate; simple, or compound; when compound pinnate, or ternate. Lamina when simple dissected, or entire; pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves stipulate. Stipules interpetiolar; caducous. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem.
Leaf anatomy. Stomata present; mainly confined to one surface (abaxial); paracytic.
Lamina dorsiventral; without secretory cavities. Minor leaf veins without phloem transfer cells.
Stem anatomy. Cork cambium present; initially superficial. Nodes tri-lacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Xylem with vessels. Vessel end-walls scalariform, or scalariform and simple. Vessels without vestured pits. Wood parenchyma apotracheal (diffuse). Sieve-tube plastids P-type; type I (b).
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite. Pollination entomophilous.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers solitary; axillary; ebracteolate; large; calyptrate; regular; partially acyclic. The androecium acyclic. Floral receptacle developing an androphore. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present.
Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 8(–10); 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx 4 (rarely 5); 1 whorled; polysepalous (basally), or gamosepalous (in the sense of cohering apically); regular; not persistent (the members apically cohering); calyptrate; imbricate (leathery). Corolla 4 (rarely 5); 1 whorled; polypetalous; imbricate; regular; white.
Androecium 20–100 (i.e. ‘many’). Androecial members branched (originating from a limited number of ‘trunk bundles’ on the receptacle); maturing centripetally; free of the perianth; all equal; free of one another; ‘multiseriate’. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 20–100; polystemonous. Anthers dorsifixed (orbicular); versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; latrorse. Pollen grains aperturate; 2 aperturate; (syn) colpate.
Gynoecium 4–14(–18) carpelled. The pistil 4–14(–18) celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious to synstylovarious; superior. Ovary 4–14(–18) locular. Styles 4–14(–18); free to partially joined; apical. Stigmas dry type; non-papillate; Group II type. Placentation axile. Ovules 15–50 per locule (i.e. ‘many’, biseriate in each loculus); pendulous; non-arillate; anatropous; bitegmic; crassinucellate.
Fruit non-fleshy (woody or leathery); dehiscent; a capsule. Capsules septicidal and valvular. Seeds copiously endospermic; winged. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2 (leafy).
Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.
Physiology, biochemistry. Not cyanogenic. Iridoids not detected. Proanthocyanidins present; cyanidin. Flavonols absent. Ellagic acid absent. Aluminium accumulation not found.
Geography, cytology. Temperate. Chile and Southeast Australia. X = 15, 16.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Rosiflorae; Cunoniales. Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Rosales. APG (1998) Eudicot; core Eudicot; Rosid; Eurosid I; Oxalidales (as a synonym of Cunoniaceae). Species 5. Genera 1; only genus, Eucryphia.
Illustrations. • Eucryphia spp..
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: 29th July 2006. http://delta-intkey.com’.
