Lianas or erect shrubs, monoecious or dioecious. Leaves alternate or opposite.
usually digitately compound, rarely 2 -
3-ternate, digitate or palmate or rarely pinnatel,
compound, exstipulate; petioles swollen at base. Inflorescences axillary racemes or
flowers solitary or fascicled. Flowers small to moderate-sized, unisexual or polygamous,
actinomorphic, trimerous. Sepals 3 or 6 in one or two series, imbricate or the outer ones
valvate, inner ones often petaloid. Petals 6 or absent, smaller than sepals, sometimes in
2 whorls of 3 nectariform honey-scales. Male flowers: Stamens 6; filaments short, free
or connate into a tube or column; anthers free, extrorse, basifixed, dehiscing longitudinally, with connectives often protruding; pistillodes present or absent. Female
flowers: Staminodes 6 or absent; carpels 3 or 6 or more, in 1 - 2(-5) whorls, superior,
free, erect, but soon divergent, 1-locular; ovules many in 2 or more rows, parietal or
ventral, sometimes solitary and basal, bitegmic, crassinucellar, anatropous, campylotropous or orthotropous; stigma oblique, subsessile. Fruitlets fleshy follicles or berries,
indehiscent or opening by dorsal longitudinal sutures at maturity, often flesh-coloured.
Seeds ovoid or subreniform with fleshy copious endosperm and small embryo.
Himalayas, N. E. India to China, Japan and S. America (Chile); 7 genera and ca 30 species, 3 genera and 5 species in India.
Notes. Though this family is included under the family Berberidaceae by Bentham & Hook. f. (Gen. Pl. 1: 40.1862) and Hook. f. & Thomson (in Fl. Brit. India 1: 108.1872), it differs by its climbing habit, unisexual flowers, extrorse anthers and gynoecia of 3 or more free carpels. It differs from Menispermaceae in being primarily monoecious, in the presence of more than one ovule i~ each carpel and by the absence of bony endocarp.
Literature. DECAISNE, J. (1839) Memoire sur la Camille des Lardizabalees. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. (Paris) 1: 143 - 213, tt. 10 - 13. GAGNEPAIN, F. (1908) Revision des Lardizabalees asiatiques de 1'herbier du Museum. Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat. (Paris) 14: 64 - 70. HEMSLEY, W. B. (1908) Asiatic Lardizabalaceae. Kew Bull. 1908: 459 - 461. JAFRI, S. M. H. (1974) Lardizabalaceae. In: Fl. W. Pakistan 60: 1 - 4, f. 1. KUMAZAWA, M. (1937) Pollen morphology in Raunculaceae, Lardizabalaceae and Berberidaceae. J. Jap. Bot. 8: 19 - 46. NAYAR, M. P. & T. K. PAUL (1988) Lardizabalaceae. In: Fasc. Fl. India 19: 29 - 38, ff. 5 - 8.
Himalayas, N. E. India to China, Japan and S. America (Chile); 7 genera and ca 30 species, 3 genera and 5 species in India.
Notes. Though this family is included under the family Berberidaceae by Bentham & Hook. f. (Gen. Pl. 1: 40.1862) and Hook. f. & Thomson (in Fl. Brit. India 1: 108.1872), it differs by its climbing habit, unisexual flowers, extrorse anthers and gynoecia of 3 or more free carpels. It differs from Menispermaceae in being primarily monoecious, in the presence of more than one ovule i~ each carpel and by the absence of bony endocarp.
Literature. DECAISNE, J. (1839) Memoire sur la Camille des Lardizabalees. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. (Paris) 1: 143 - 213, tt. 10 - 13. GAGNEPAIN, F. (1908) Revision des Lardizabalees asiatiques de 1'herbier du Museum. Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat. (Paris) 14: 64 - 70. HEMSLEY, W. B. (1908) Asiatic Lardizabalaceae. Kew Bull. 1908: 459 - 461. JAFRI, S. M. H. (1974) Lardizabalaceae. In: Fl. W. Pakistan 60: 1 - 4, f. 1. KUMAZAWA, M. (1937) Pollen morphology in Raunculaceae, Lardizabalaceae and Berberidaceae. J. Jap. Bot. 8: 19 - 46. NAYAR, M. P. & T. K. PAUL (1988) Lardizabalaceae. In: Fasc. Fl. India 19: 29 - 38, ff. 5 - 8.
KEY TO THE GENERA
| 1a. Erect shrubs; leaves pinnate with several pairs of opposite leaflets | 1. Decaisnea |
| b. Climbing shrubs; leaves trifoliate or digitately compound | 2 |
| 2a. Filaments of stamens free | 2. Holboellia |
| b. Filaments of stamens united into a column | 3. Parvatia |
