Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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Shrubs, trailing or scrambling, dioecious or monoecious, usually glabrous; branches terete, striate or angled, sometimes narrowly winged. Leaves alternate on long shoots, crowded on short shoots, entire or denticulate, thin, pellucid-punctate. Flowers solitary in leaf-axils or fascicled on old wood; pedicels slender, terete, often 1 - 4-bracteolate or sometimes ebracteolate. Perianth segments 5 - 20, usually 2- or 3-seriate, yellow or reddish, often pellucid-glandular. Male flowers: Torus either broadly columnar, with broad naked apex, surrounded by erecto-patent stamens or globose, provided with cavities in which the majority of anthers are embedded; anthers free, suberect; outer ones on short filaments; inner ones sessile. Female flowers: Torus shortly stalked, globose; carpels many, sessile, each tapering above into an elongate flattened appendage. Fruitlets on much elongated torus, ellipsoid to obovoid, rounded. Seeds 1 - 2, ellipsoid, subglobose or reniform.

N. America, tropical and warm temperate Asia; ca 25 species, 5 in India.



KEY TO THE SPECIES


1a. Stamens in shallow or circular pits or cavities on subglobose or obovoid torus; anthers at length.Free or reflexed or remaining immersed in cavities 2
b. Stamens on elongate or ovoid torus, not in cavities or pits; anthers sessile or stalked 3
2a. Perianth segments 6 - 10 in male flowers and 8 - 16 in female flowers 4. Schisandra propinqua
b. Perianth segments 11 - 17 in male flowers and 17 - 20 in female flowers 3. Schisandra plena
3a. Perianth segments yellowish, 5 - 10 mm across; carpels 20 - 24 2. Schisandra neglecta
b. Perianth segments white, pale pink, red or crimson, 10 - 18 mm across; carpels 70 - 120 4
4a. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, subglaucous beneath; perianth segments usually white or sometimes pale pink; old ones turning to brownish; carpels appendaged at apex 1. Schisandra grandiflora
b. Leaves oblong-dentate, pale beneath; perianth segments usually red, scarlet or crimson; old ones reddish; carpels not appendaged at apex 5. Schisandra rubriflora


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