Trees, shrubs, rarely subshrubs or perennial herbs, monoecious or dioecious, mostly
glabrous, evergreen. Leaves alternate or opposite, simple, entire, rarely toothed, penninerved
or rarely 5- or 3-nerved. Inflorescences mostly axillary, rarely pseudo-terminal, cymose fascicles,
dense-flowered spiciform racemes, rarely head-like or flowers solitary; flowers unisexual or
rarely a few bisexual, actinomorphic, each in axil of a bract, shortly pedicelled or sessile, with
male flowers more numerous than female flowers, sometimes male flowers in capitate clusters (in
Simmondsia). Male flowers: sepals usually 4, 5 or 6, rarely absent, often basally short connate;
petals and disc absent; stamens 4 - 6, rarely 10 - 12, when 4 then opposite to sepals, when 6 two
pairs opposite to inner sepals; anthers large, oblong, basifixed, sessile or borne on fairly long
filaments; thecae dehiscing longitudinally by 2 valves; pistillode present or absent. Female
flowers: often solitary or in 2 - 7-flowered pendulous racemes, often pedicellate; sepals as in
male; staminodes absent; ovary superior, mostly 3-locular, sometimes 2- or 4-locular; ovules 1
or 2 per locule, on axile placentation, pendulous or patent from apex or axis, anatropous, with a
dorsal raphe, bitegmic, crassinucellate; styles (2 -) 3 (- 4), free or basally connate, contiguous or
widely separated and undivided, persistent; stigmas decurrent. Fruits capsular and loculicidally
dehiscent, sometimes explosively, or occasionally fleshy, berry-like and indehiscent; seeds 1 or
more, compressed, often glossy black, sometimes with a caruncle; endosperm fleshy, copious,
rarely absent (in Simmondsia); embryo straight, linear, terete; cotyledons flat or thick.
Warm temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, showing disjunct
distribution, mostly in eastern Asia (Japan, China, Indo-china and N.E. India), scarce in eastern
America to Andes, absent in Polynesia and Australia, 4 genera and ca 70 species; 2 genera and
8 species indigenous and one genus with one species cultivated in India.
Literature.
CHAKRABARTY, T. & N. P. BALAKRISHNAN (2005). The family Buxaceae in the
Indian subcontinent. J. Econ. Taxon. Bot. 29: 173 - 186, t. 1.
KEY TO THE GENERA
1 a. Plants dioecious; male flowers with 4 or 5 sepals; stamens 10 - 12; rudimentary pistil absent
in male flowers (Cult.)
b. Plants monoecious; male flowers with 4 or 6 sepals; stamens 4 - 6; rudimentary pistil present
in male flowers
2
2 a. Leaves opposite; female flowers in upper part of the racemes or flower-clusters, above the
male flowers; fruits loculicidally dehiscent capsules, 6-seeded; seeds with caruncle
b. Leaves alternate; female flowers at the base of the racemes, below the male flowers; fruits
subdrupaceous, indehiscent, 3-seeded; seeds without caruncle
