Shrubs or trees, dioecious, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves simple, alternate, entire,
penninerved; petioles short; stipules usually narrow, sometimes conspicuous and subfoliaceous,
caducous or persistent. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, rarely cauliflorous, simple or
paniculate, racemose or spicate, with small flowers arising singly along the rachis; bracts small.
Male flowers: sessile or shortly pedicellate; calyx shortly cupular, 3 – 5-lobed with imbricate
lobes; petals absent; disc pulviniform, extra-staminal, composed of free or more or less connate
glands; stamens 2 - 5, arising within the disc or between the disc glands or in the excavations of
the disc, exserted; anther-thecae orbicular, distinct; connective thick; pistillode small. Female
flowers: pedicellate or sometimes sessile; calyx as in male; petals absent; disc annular; ovary 1
(or 2) locular; locules biovulate; styles 3, terminal to lateral, ca 1 mm long, shortly connate at
base, bifid or bilobed above, persistent. Fruits drupaceous, 3 - 15 mm long, symmetrical or
oblique, indehiscent, usually laxly reticulate-alveolate, 1-seeded.
About 150 species, mainly in the Old World tropics, mostly in South-East Asia, Malesia,
Australia and the Pacific, 10 species in Africa and Madagascar; 15 species in India.
Literature.
CHAKRABARTY, T. & M. GANGOPADHYAY (2000). The genus Antidesma L.
(Euphorbiaceae) in the Indian subcontinent. J. Econ. Taxon. Bot. 24: 1 - 55, ff. 1 - 23. PAX, F. & K.
HOFFMANN (1922). Euphorbiaceae - Phyllantheae. In: A. Engler (ed.), Das Pflanzenreich IV.147.XV.
(Heft 81): 1 - 349.
Notes.
Hans (Taxon 22: 591 - 636. 1973) compiled the chromosome numbers of 7 species
of Antidesma and also discussed the polyploidy in the genus (Cytologia 23: 321 - 327. 1970),
based on x = 13, and opined that on cytological grounds, Antidesma cannot be removed to a
separate family.
4a. Leaves oblong (or narrowly so) to oblong-elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, coriaceous; venation of
leaves finely tessellated, forming more or less squarish reticulae
b. Leaves pubescent above, at least on the midrib; lateral nerves inconspicuous or faint on the
upper surface; flowers pedicellate; fruits 5 - 7 x 4 - 5 mm, pedicellate
14
14a. Male inflorescences 1 - 3 cm long; bracts up to 1 mm long; infructescences 2 - 8 cm long