Cotinus Miller

Deciduous shrubs or trees, usually dioecious. Leaves simple, alternate, petiolate. Panicles terminal. Flowers both unisexual and bisexual, bracteate, pedicellate. Calyx 5-lobed, persistent. Petals 5, imbricate. Stamens 5, rarely 10. Disc intrastaminai, usually 5-lobed. Carpels 3, syncarpous; ovary superior, 1-loculed, 1-ovuled; styles 3, lateral; stigma simple. Fruiting panicles usually furnished with long and plumose pedicels of numerous sterile flowers. Drupes obliquely ovoid. Seeds reniform.

North America, Europe, Africa, Asia; ca 3 species, 2 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Stamens 5; styles 3; pedicels of sterile flowers plumose; fruits obliquely ovoid; fruits and leaves tomentose

1. Cotinus coggygria

b. Stamens 10; style 1; feathery structure absent in pedicels; fruits orbicular; fruits and leaves glabrous

2. Cotinus kanaka

List of Lower Taxa