Poeciloneuron
Beddome
Large, evergreen trees; wood hard, heavy; branchlets clothed with minute hairs. Leaves opposite, linear-oblong to lanceolate, acute to attenuate, entire, shiny, smooth, thick, coriaceous, with close-set, numerous, parallel lateral veins, joined at angles by. transverse veins or minutely reticulated; petioles channelled above, clothed with minute hairs. Inflorescence of terminal panicles or of solitary flowers, axillary at each node. Flowers yellowish-white or yellowish, rather showy. Sepals 4 - 5, small, imbricate. Petals 5 - 6, contorted. Stamens ca 16 - 22 in 2 whorls, free or slightly connate at base; anthers basifixed, narrowly linear, erect. Ovary bilocular, ovules 2 in each loeule, erect; styles 2, subulate, stigmatic at tips or stigmas punctiform. Capsules ovoid, unilocular, 1-seeded, septicidally dehiscing into 2 coriaceous valves. Seeds erect, hard, exalbuminous; testa loose, membranous, striated; cotyledons fleshy.
Endemic to Southern Western Ghats of India 2 species.
Notes. This genus is sometimes assigned to the family Bonnetiaceae based on the presence of fibre tracheids (Kupiers, B. in Leiden Bot. Ser. 3: 76 - 101. 1976). But based on opposite leaves and basal placentation it can clearly be placed in the tribe Calo-phylleae (Kubitzki et al. in Biochem. Syst. Ecol. 6: 105 - 187. 1978).
Endemic to Southern Western Ghats of India 2 species.
Notes. This genus is sometimes assigned to the family Bonnetiaceae based on the presence of fibre tracheids (Kupiers, B. in Leiden Bot. Ser. 3: 76 - 101. 1976). But based on opposite leaves and basal placentation it can clearly be placed in the tribe Calo-phylleae (Kubitzki et al. in Biochem. Syst. Ecol. 6: 105 - 187. 1978).
KEY TO THE SPECIES
| 1a. Flowers in an elongated, terminal panicle; sepals and petals 5 each; anthers lobulated or tuberculate | 1. Poeciloneuron indicum |
| b. Flowers solitary, sometimes in fascicles of 2 or 4, axillary; sepals 4; petals 6; anthers entire or smooth | 2. Poeciloneuron pauciflorum |
