Desmos Lour.

Shrubs or scandent shrubs or small trees. Leaves often glaucous beneath, shiny above. Flowers bisexual, often solitary, extra-axillary or leaf-opposed, usually pendulous. Sepals 3, small, valvate in buds, free or connate at base. Petals 6 (3 + 3), sometimes the inner 3 absent, valvate, clawed at base. Stamens numerous; anther-thecae linear, extrorse; connectives subglobose or truncate at top. Carpels numerous, pubescent; style oblong or ovoid; stigma oblong, ovoid or clavate, opening U-shaped, grooved; ovules 2 - 8, 1-seriate. Ripe carpels many, moniliform, with 1 - 8 segments, sometimes torulose. Seed 1 in each segment.

India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Indo-china, Thailand through Malesia to Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands; ca 30 species, 8 in India.

Literature. SAFFORD, W. E. (1912) Desmos, the proper generic name for the so-called Unonas of the Old World. Bull. Torrey Bot. club 39: 501 - 508.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Petals 3 or 2, inner series absent

2

b. Petals 6, in 2 series

3

2a. Flowers cream-coloured, usually 3-fringed; petals 3 - 4, acute to shortly acuminate

3. Desmos dasymaschalus

b. Flowers red, horn-shaped; petals 2 - 3, linear-lanceolate, long-acuminate

6. Desmos longiflorus

3a. Petals twice as long as broad

4

b. Petals 4 times as long as broad or longer

5

4a. Flowering pedicels 10 - 15 cm long

2. Desmos cochinchinensis

b. Flowering pedicels 1 - 35 cm long

4. Desmos dumosus

5a. Petals lanceolate

6

b. Petals narrowly linear

7

6a. Leaves abruptly and bluntly acute, almost glabrous; bracts minute; petals glabrous

1. Desmos chinensis

b. Leaves long-acuminate, pubescent beneath; bracts ca 1 cm long; petals pubescent to glabrous

8. Desmos viridiflorus

7a. Pedicels 4 - 7 cm long; petals silky pubescent; inner petals smaller

5. Desmos lawii

b. Pedicels 2 - 3 cm long; petals glabrous; inner petals longer

7. Desmos praecox

List of Lower Taxa