Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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SAPINDACEAE
P.C. Pant



Trees or shrubs, sometimes woody or herbaceous climbers with axillary tendrils; plants tanniferous, producing proanthocyanjns, and not ellagic acid. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, pinnate, palmate or trifoliolate, rarely simple; stipules absent excepting in some of the climbers; leaflets opposite or alternate, entire or dentate, occasionally lobed; petiolules swollen into a pulvinus. Inflorescence axillary or terminal cymes, racemes or panicles, seldom solitary and axillary. Flowers regular or irregular, bisexual or functionally unisexual, usually small. Sepals 4 - 5, free or united below, imbricate or rarely valvate. Petals free, mostly 4 or 5, seldom more than 5 or only 3, equal or unequal, imbricate, at times with an appendage at the base, sometimes absent. Disc annular, sometimes unilateral, rarely the disc is minute and intrastaminal. Stamens in a single whorl, 4 - 10, usually 8, inserted within the disc at the base of the ovary, or outside, or on the disc or unilateral; filaments free, often pubescent-hairy, long in the male, short in bisexual flowers; anthers 2-locular, opening by longitudinal slits; pollen grains tricolporate or syncolporate, rarely bicolporate or 3 - 4-porate. Ovary superior, entire or 2 - 3-lobed, usually of 3 carpels, rarely of 2 or 6 or less than 6 carpels, united into a compound, generally plurilocular ovary; style terminal, lobed or divided, rarely 2 - 4, free; ovules 1 - 2 or rarely many in each locule, axile, rarely parietal. Fruits capsules, drupes or nuts, fleshy or dry, dehiscent or indehiscent. smooth, rough, hairy or spiny, sometimes winged. Seeds without endosperm, often arillate; embryo twisted, plicate, oily and starchy.

Throughout the world, especially in tropical and subtropical regions; ca 150 genera and 2000 species; 18 genera and 37 species in India.

Literature. VAN DEN BERG, R.G. (1978). Pollen Morphology of the genera Pometia, Cubilia. Otonephelium and Litchi (Sapindaceae - Nephelieae). Blumea 24: 369-494. LEENHOUTS P.W.(1978). Systematic Notes on the Sapindaceae-Nephelieae. Blumea 24: 395-403. MUKERJEE, S.K. (1980). Sapindaceae of Peninsular India. J. Econ. Tax. Bot. 1: 77-81. MULLER. J. & P.W. LEENHOUTS (1976). A general survey of the pollen types in Sapindaceae in relation to taxonomy. In: I.K. Ferguson. J. Ferguson & J. Muller. The evolutionary significance of the exine. Linn. Soc. Symp. Ser. 1: 407-445. RADLKOFER (1931-34). In: Engl., Das Pflanzenreich. Heft 98.



KEY TO THE GENERA


1a. Herbaceous climbers 3. Cardiospermum
b. Shrubs and trees 2
2a. Leaves simple 3
b. Leaves compound (sometimes unifoliolate in some races of Allophyllus chartaceous) 5
3a. Fruits compressed and winged 7. Dodonaea
b. Fruits neither compressed nor winged 4
4a. Fruits tubercled 13. Nephelium
b. Fruits not tubercled 12. Mischocarpus
5a. Flowers irregular 6
b. Flowers regular 7
6a. Sepals-4, hooded 1. Allophylus
b. Sepals-5, not hooded 6. Dittelasma
7a. Rachis broadly winged 8. Filicium
b. Rachis not winged 8
8a. Ovules-2 9
b. Ovules solitary 10
9a. Fruits inflated capsules 10. Harpullia
b. Fruits membranous, winged capsules 7. Dodonaea
10a. Sepals in two whorls 11
b. Sepals not in two whorls 13
11a. Fruits saponaceous 16. Sapindus
b. Fruits not saponaceous 12
12a. Petals without scales 18. Xerospermum
b. Petals with scales or hairy rim or pair of auricles at base 11. Lepisanthes
13a. Young branches, upper surface of leaflets and flowers with resinous scales 9. Ganophyllum
b. Resinous scales absent 14
14a. Petals absent 15
b. Petals present 19
15a. Lowest pair of leaflets stipuliform 16
b. Leaflets not stipuliform 17
16a. Fruits densely covered by soft, weak prickles 14. Otonephelium
b. Fruits glabrous 15. Pometia
17a. Deciduous or subdeciduous trees 17. Schleichera
b. Evergreen plants 18
18a. Fruits tubercled 13. Nephelium
b. Fruits not tubercled 12. Mischocarpus
19a. Fruits indehiscent 20
b. Fruits dehiscent 21
20a. Disc densely hairy 5. Dimocarpus
b. Disc glabrous 15. Pometia
21a. Aril with two spurs at base 12. Mischocarpus
b. Aril not spurred 22
22a. Flowers tetramerous 4. Cupania
b. Flowers pentamerous 2. Arytera


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