Sabia Colebr.

Deciduous or evergreen, woody climbers or scandent shrubs with persistent bud scales at the base of branches. Leaves alternate, simple, ovate or elliptic to lanceolate, entire, petiolate, exstipulate. Inflorescence an axillary cyme, rarely a panicle or raceme, sometimes flowers solitary. Flowers small, bisexual, 5-merous, actinomorphic. Sepals 5, equal, basally connate, somewhat orbicular-ovate, persistent. Petals 5 - 7, equal, imbricatre. Disc 5-lobed. Stamens 5, all fertile, inserted on the disc and adnate to petals at base; anthers globular. Carpels 2; ovary ovoid or conical, 2-loculed; styles 2, slightly united. Fruit of 1 or 2, almost free, reniform or subglobose druplets; endocarp pitted or reticulate, bony. Seeds reniform, testa brittle.

Mainly confined to South East Asia and Malesian regions, distributed from Kashmir to East Asia to Solomon Islands; about 19 species, 6 in India.

Literature. CHEN, L. (1943) A revision of the Genus Sabia Colebr. Sargentia 3: 1 - 75. WATER, V.D. (1980). A Taxonomic revision of the Genus Sabia (Sabiaceae). Blumea 26 (1): 1 - 64.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Flowers solitary

1. Sabia campanulata

b. Flowers few to many

2

2a. Inflorescence few-flowered, simple cymes

6. Sabia purpurea

b. Inflorescence many-flowered, compound cymes

3

3a. Petals 3.5 - 5 mm long

2. Sabia lanceolata

b. Petals 2 - 3 mm long

4

4a. Inflorescence 10 - 20-flowered, shorter than leaves

5. Sabia parviflora

b. Inflorescence many-flowered, generally larger than leaves

5

5a. Lateral cymes simple, glabrous.

3. Sabia limoniacea

b. Lateral cymes compound, pubescent

4. Sabia paniculata

List of Lower Taxa