Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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Large to small trees, occasionally buttressed at base. Leaves simple, alternate, rarely opposite, often crowded at the tips of branchlets; stipules caducous. Inflorescences axillary racemes, cymes or flowers solitary, paired or fascicled. Flowers often fragrant, regular, bisexual, rarely polygamous. Sepals free, valvate, rarely shortly connate, hairy or glabrous. Petals free, usually valvate, hairy or glabrous, margins entire or laciniate, sometimes petals sepaloid or absent. Stamens many, arising from inside of disc; filaments free, hairy or glabrous; anthers simple, awned or bearded, 2-loculed, opening by terminal pores or slits. Disc nectariferous, lobed or cushion-shaped or glanduliform. Ovary superior, rarely semi-inferior, 2- 7-loculed, ovules 2- many in each locule, hairy or glabrous; styles glabrous or hairy at base; stigmas simple. Fruits a drupe, capsule or berry, smooth or wrinkled, setose or spiny, dehiscent or indehiscent. Seeds smooth, rugose or tubercled, arillate or not, pendulous from axile placenta; testa crustaceous or bony; endosperm fleshy; cotyledons flat.

Tropics and subtropics of the world; ca 9 genera and 400 species; 2 genera and 33 species in India.

Literature. COODE, M.J.E. (1978). A conspectus of Elaeocarpaceae in Papuasia. Brunonia 1: 131 - 302. MOORE, H. E. Jr. (1953). Some notes on cultivated Elaeocarpaceae. Baileya 1: 112 - 113. SCHLECHTER, R. (1916). Die Elaeocarpaceae Papuasiens. Bot. Jahrb. 54: 92 - 155. SCHUMANN, K. (1890 & 1897). Elaeocarpaceae In: ENGLER, A. & K. PRANTL, Nat. Pflanzenfam. 3, 6: 1 - 8. 1890; Nachtr. 230. 1897.



KEY TO THE GENERA


1a. Flowers in racemes; ovules 2 in each locule; fruit a drupe 1. Elaeocarpus
b. Flowers solitary or fascicled; ovules many in each locule; fruit a capsule or berry 2
2a. Flowers solitary; petals laciniate; ovary superior; capsules echinate or setose, locules 1-seeded 2. Sloanea
b. Flowers fascicled or in pairs; petals entire; ovary semiinferior; berries smooth, locules many-seeded 0. Muntingia


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