Gouania Jacq.

Climbing shurbs; branches circinately tendrilar. Leaves alternate, petiolate; stipules free, caducous. Inflorescence terminal or axillary racemes or panicles. Flowers bisexual, epigynous, pentamerous; rachis, often cirrhose. Calyx lobes 5, valvate, glabrous or pubescent. Petals 5, cucullate, clawed at base, inserted below the margin of disc. Stamens 5, enclosed in petals; anthers dehisce longitudinally. Disc massive, glabrous or hairy, 5-lobed; lobes opposite to calyx lobes. Ovary connate to the bottom of calyx tube, 3-carpellary, 3-loculed, immersed in the disc, usually urceolate; style 3-cleft, obscurely or deeply 3- lobed; stigma papillose. Schizocarpic capsules trigonous, 3-winged or cocci 3, woody, 3-1ocular, indehiscent. Seeds 3, obovate, plano-convex; testa shining, horny; albumen thin; cotyledons rotundate; embryo erect, furnished with perisperm.

America, Asia, Africa, Madagascar and other Islands of the Indian ocean and Australia; 70 species, 4 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves entire; fruits rusty tomentose

1. Gouania andamanica

b. Leaves crenate-serrate; fruits glabrous

2

2a. Leaves distantly and minutely serrulate, rounded at base; flowers sessile; disc villous, lobes rounded, emarginate

3. Gouania microcarpa

b. Leaves crenate, cordate at base; flowers shortly pedicellate; disc glabrous, lobes stellately homed

3

3a. Inflorescence glabrous; lateral nerves 4-6 pairs

2. Gouania leptostachya

b. Inflorescence puberulous; lateral nerves 6-8 pairs

4. Gouania napalensis

List of Lower Taxa