Shrubs or small trees, glabrous. Leaves alternate or subverticillate at branch ends,
simple, entire, pinnately nerved; stipules absent. Flowers solitary, axillary or supra-axillary, rarely cauliflorous, bisexual; pedicels bracteate, sometimes 1 - 2-bracteolate. Perianth segments spirally arranged, free, 7 - 33; the outermost ones small, bracteole-like;
inner ones becoming larger and ligulate or suborbicular, imbricate; the innermost ones
often reduced. Stamens few to many, usually 4 -
50, several to 1-seriate; filaments free;
anthers oblong, basifixed or adnate, introrso-lateral; thecae often separate; the connective sometimes glandular, not produced but sometimes apiculate at apex. Carpels
obliquely attached to torus, (5-)12 - 15(-20), free, uniseriate, laterally compressed,
narrowed into style, 1-ovuled; style subulate, recurved, persistent; ovule solitary,
attached ventrally near base, bitegmic, crassinucellar, anatropous. Fruit a follicetum
consisting of a single whorl of free follicles, dehiscing ventrally. Seeds glossy with
copious oily endosperm and minute embryo; cotyledons hardly differentiated.
N.E. India, Japan, Korea, E. China to Malaya, Borneo, Philippines, Southeast U.S.A., E. Mexico and West Indies; one genus and ca 40 species, 4 species in India.
Notes. A natural unigeneric family of great phylogenetic antiquity, formerly kept as a tribe under Magnoliaceae by De Candolle (Prodr. 1: 77. 1824) and Hook. f. (Fl. Brit. India 1: 39. 1872). However, Hutchinson (Fam. Fl. Pl. ed. 2. 125. 1958 & Gen. Fl. Pl. 1: 57. 1964) follows Hu (in Bull. Chin. Bot. Soc. 1: 86. 1935) and treats it as a separate family in Magnoliales. More recently Dahlgren (Bot. Notiser 128: 124. 1974) treated Illiciaceae under a separate order Illiciales.
Literature. BAILEY, I.W. & C.G. NAST (1948) Morphology and relationships of Illicium, Schisandra, and Kadsura. J. Arn. Arb. 29: 77. SMTIH, A.C. (1947) The families Illiciaceae and Schisandraceae. Sargentia 7: 1 - 244.
N.E. India, Japan, Korea, E. China to Malaya, Borneo, Philippines, Southeast U.S.A., E. Mexico and West Indies; one genus and ca 40 species, 4 species in India.
Notes. A natural unigeneric family of great phylogenetic antiquity, formerly kept as a tribe under Magnoliaceae by De Candolle (Prodr. 1: 77. 1824) and Hook. f. (Fl. Brit. India 1: 39. 1872). However, Hutchinson (Fam. Fl. Pl. ed. 2. 125. 1958 & Gen. Fl. Pl. 1: 57. 1964) follows Hu (in Bull. Chin. Bot. Soc. 1: 86. 1935) and treats it as a separate family in Magnoliales. More recently Dahlgren (Bot. Notiser 128: 124. 1974) treated Illiciaceae under a separate order Illiciales.
Literature. BAILEY, I.W. & C.G. NAST (1948) Morphology and relationships of Illicium, Schisandra, and Kadsura. J. Arn. Arb. 29: 77. SMTIH, A.C. (1947) The families Illiciaceae and Schisandraceae. Sargentia 7: 1 - 244.
