Gordonia Ellis, nom. cons.

Perennial shrubs or evergreen trees. Leaves crenate or entire, coriaceous or chartaceous. Flowers showy, often subsessile, axillary, solitary or 2 - 3 fascicled at the ends of branches; bracts 2 - 5, caducous. Sepals 5, unequal, graduating from bracts to petals. Petals 5, free or shortly connate at base, inner most larger. Stamens numerous, 5-adelphous or all connate, adnate to the base of petals. Ovary 3 - 5 (- 6)-loculed; ovules 5 - 8 in each locule; style 1; stigma 3 - 5-lobed. Capsules ellipsoid-oblong, 3 - 6 -angled, woody, loculicidally dehiscent with a persistent central axis. Seeds 4 - 8 in each locule, flat or compressed, ellipsoid, prolonged upwards into oblong wing, exalbuminous; embryo mostly straight, oblique with ovate, flat or slightly crumpled cotyledons; radicle superior.

In tropical and subtropical Asia and North America; ca 40 species, 2 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves acuminate at apex, obscurely serrate, coriaceous; pedicels ca 2 mm long

1. Gordonia excelsa

b. Leaves obtuse or obtusely acuminate at apex, crenate, chartaceous; pedicels 2.5 - 5 mm long

2. Gordonia obtusa

List of Lower Taxa