Trees. Leaves simple, alternate, entire, subentire or serrate, pinnately veined, often
With tufts of hairs in axils of veins beneath; petioles often swollen and geniculate; stipules
Small, linear, rarely large, foliaceous, caducous. Flowers axillary, solitary or fascicled,
rarely cymes or racemes. Flowers pale white, often fragrant. Sepals 4(- 5), free or
connate at base, valvate or imbricate. Petals 4(- 5), distinct or sepaloid or absent, free,
rarely connate at base, entire or variously laciniate. Stamens numerous, free; filaments
long or short, hairy; anthers linear or oblong, hairy, awned or not, 2-loculed, dehiscing
by transverse slits at apex. Disc thick, broad, flat or cushion-shaped. Ovary superior,
sessile, tomentose, 2 -
7-loculed, with numeous ovules in each locule; styles short or long,
subulate, often twisted, hairy at base; stigmas entire. Fruits 2 - 5(- 7)-valved woody
capsules; valves smooth or covered with bristles or spines; spines simple, broad-based,
glabrous or hairy, deciduous or persistent; locules 2 -
4-seeded, rarely 1-seeded. Seeds
ovoid, usually artillate, testa bony, shining.
Tropical Asia including East and South East Asia, Australia and America, ca 120
Species; 4 in India.
Literature.
COODE, M.J.E. (1983). A conspectus of sloanea (Elaeocarpaceae) in the Old world.
Kew., Bull. 38: 347 - 427. SMITH, C.E.
(1954). The New World of species of Sloanea (Elaeocarpaceae). Contr. Gray Herb. 175: 1 - 114. TIREL, C. (1980). Nauvelles Caledonia. Adansonia 2, 20: 91 - 106.
Notes.
Hutchison in his The Genera of flowering plants, vol. 2(1967) treats Sloanea
L. (1753) to be distinct from Echinocarpus Blume(1825) on the basis of sepals being
imbricate in 2 series in Echinocarpus and valvate in 1 series in Sloanea. According to
him, the species distributed in Old World i.e. Eastern and S.E. Asia, Australia etc. belong
to Echinocarpus and those distributed in the New World belong to Sloanea. and this was
followed by Santapau & Henry (Dictionary of the flowering plants in India 1973).
However, Airy shaw (in J.C. Willis, A Dictionary of the flowering plants and ferns, 1973)
treats both as congeneric, merging Echinocarpus under Sloanea and this view is followed
in this flora.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Capsules covered with dense, decieuous spines; spines parallel-sided or clavate, 2 -
3 mm long
2
b. Capsules covered with lax, persistent spines; spines broad-based, pointed, 8 -
12 mm long or more
3
2a. Leaves glabrous beneath or with a few hair tufts; petioles glabrous; capsules 2 -
3 cm long
