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.
