Scandent shrubs or small trees. Leaves spirally arranged; petiole elliptic
to orbicular, toothed, crenate or subentire, rarely serrulate; stipules caducous.
Inflorescence terminal, axillary or lateral racemes or cymes. Flowers 5-merous,
minute, unisexual and then plants dioecious or bisexual, pedicellate. Sepals
valvate or imbricate, persistent. Petals inserted under the disc. Fertile stamens
inserted on or below the margin of the disc; filaments glabrous or papillose;
anthers ovoid or oblong-ellipsoid, obtuse or apiculate; sterile stamens smaller;
anthers ovate-oblong, acute or acuminate. Ovary free from the disc or slightly
confluent with it, 3-locular; sterile ovary in male flowers much smaller than
the fertile one; ovules 2 or 1 in each locule. Disc cupular, membranous or
fleshy and flat. entire or lobed. Fruits capsular, subglobose, loculicidally 3-
valved. Seeds 1-6, arillate.
Mostly in tropical and subtropical East Asia to Australia and Latin America,
fewer in N. America and Madagascar; ca 31 species, 7 in India.
Literature.
DING HOU (1955). A revision of the genus Celastrus. Ann. Missouri Bot.
Gard. 42: 215-302.