TILIACEAE

Trees, shrubs, undershrubs, herbs or woody climbers, with stellate or simple hairs or lepidote. Leaves simple, alternate, rarely opposite, stipulate, rarely exstipulate, petiolate, usually palmately nerved, occasionally pinnately nerved, entire or dentate, rarely lobed. Inflorescences axillary, terminal or leaf-opposed cymes or panicles, rarely flowers solitary. Flowers bracteate, bisexual, very rarely unisexual or both, mostly 4 - 5 - merous, actinomorphic, hypogynous. Sepals 4 - 5, free or partly united, valvate, rarely imbricate, occasionally persistent and accrescent. Petals 4 - 5, free, contorted, imbricate or valvate, sometimes sepaloid, rarely absent. Stamens 5 - many, free or shortly connate at base, or in 5 or 10 bundles, inserted on receptacle or androphore; staminodes present or absent; anthers 2-loculed, opening by a longitudinal slit or an apical and rarely a basal pore. Carpels 2 - 5 (-10), rarely more, syncarpous, rarely free; ovary superior, rarely inferior, sessile, 2 - 10-loculed; ovules 1-numerous in each locule; placentation usually axile, rarely parietal; style usually simple and divided at apex; stigma rarely sessile. Fruit drupaceous, nut-like, or a capsule and variously dehiscent; seeds 1-many in each locule, rarely arillate, occasionally pilose, mostly endospermous; embryo usually straight; cotyledons foliaceous.

Tropical and temperate regions but more abundant in the former, chiefly in S.E. Asia and Brazil, with ca 50 genera and 450 species; 8 genera and 53 species in India.

Literature. BURRETT, M. (1926). Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Tiliaceen. Notizbl. Bot. Gatt. Berlin-Dahlem 9: 592 - 880. GHAFOOR, A. (1974). Tiliaceae. In: NASIR, E. & S.I. ALI, Fl. W. Pakistan 75: 1 - 33. ROBYNS, A. & W. MEIJER, (1991) Tiliaceae. In: DASSANAYAKE, M.D. & F.R. FOSBERG, Rev. Handb. Fl. Ceylon 7: 402 - 437.

KEY TO THE GENERA

1a. Fruit a drupe

6. Grewia

b. Fruit a capsule

2

2a. Capsules echinate

3

b. Capsules not echinate

4

3a. Trees; capsules triangular, angles winged, echinate on faces

5. Erinocarpus

b. Shrubs or herbs; capsules not triangular, wingless, echinate all over

8. Triumfetta

4a. Capsule cocci winged; wings more than 1 cm long

5

b. Capsules not winged ( only angles winged, wings much less than 1 cm long in Corchorus aestuans)

6

5a. Wings 2 - 5; seeds without bristles

3. Colona

b. Wings 5 - 8; seeds with bristles

1. Berrya

6a. Shrubs or herbs; leaves usually with filiform processes at base; capsules usually elongate, rarely subglobose to globose

4. Corchorus

b. Trees; leaves without filiform processes at base; capsules neither elongate nor subglobose to globose

7

7a. Leaves palmately nerved; capsules orbicular·reniform, compressed contraty to septum; seeds pilose

7. Trichospermum

b. Leaves pinnately nerved; capsules pyriform; seeds not pilose

2. Brownlowia

List of Lower Taxa