Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, exstipulate, coriaceous or chartaceous, often
drying yellowish; petioles thick, channelled above. Racemes axillary, extra-axillary or
terminal, simple or paniculate, patently branched; flowers 2 - 3-nate, shortly pedicelled.
Sepals 5, nearly equal, free, inner 2 larger. Petals 5, or rarely 4, free, declinate, subequal ,
glabrous; the lowest one keeled, boat-shaped, not crested, sometimes softly pubescent;
the other 4 subequal, narrowly oblong, glabrous; 2 upper ones recurved in upper half.
Stamens mostly 8 (-10), usually all free or 2 partially adnate to keel, 4 coherent with other
petals singly at base, and the remaining 2 quite free, inserted on disk; filaments strigose-ciliate at base or not, upcurved; anthers 2-locular, erect, longitudinally dehiscing by
double slits. Disk hypogynous, annular. Ovary 1-loculed or imperfectly 2-loculed,
stalked or sessile, woolly or glabrous; stigma terminal, small. Fruits usually 1-seeded
indehiscent drupes, globose, exalate, fleshy when fresh, woody and coriaceous on drying;
seeds globose or subglobose, estrophiolate; endosperm copious or absent; cotyledons
thick, fleshy, plano-convex.
South and S.E. Asia from India to N. Australia and Solomon Islands; one genus and ca 40 species, 4 species in India.
Literature. MEIDEN, R. Van der (1982) Systematics and evolution of Xanthophyllum (polyalaceae). Leiden Botanical Series 7: 1 - 159, ff. 1 - 22 .
South and S.E. Asia from India to N. Australia and Solomon Islands; one genus and ca 40 species, 4 species in India.
Literature. MEIDEN, R. Van der (1982) Systematics and evolution of Xanthophyllum (polyalaceae). Leiden Botanical Series 7: 1 - 159, ff. 1 - 22 .
