Kydia Roxb.

Trees; bark mucilaginous; branchlets stellate-pubescent. Leaves palminerved, lobed or angled with nectaries on the veins beneath. Flowers polygamous in axillary or terminal panicles. Epicalyx segments 4 - 6, foliaceous, connate at base, accrescent and spreading in fruit, persistent. Calyx 5-fid. Petals 5, obcordate, adnate to staminal tube at base. Staminal column branched distally into 5 arms, each tipped by a cluster of 4 - 6 connate, reniform anthers. Ovary abortive with a short style in male flowers. In female flowers branches of staminal column short with imperfect anthers. Ovary trilocular with 2 - 3 ovules in each locule; styles 3 with peltate stigmas. Capsules subglobose, depressed, muticous; loculicidally 3-valved. Seeds reniform, furrowed, ascending.

Predominantly in tropical and subtropical regions of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Brazil, 4 species; 2 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves stellate-pubescent beneath; epicalyx segments oblong, or obovate, stellate-pubescent on both surafces

1. Kydia calycina

b. Leaves glabrate; epicalyx segments oblanceolate, glabrous

2. Kydia glabrescens

List of Lower Taxa