Shrubs or undershrubs, sometimes nearly herbaceous, deciduous or evergreen,
monoecious or dioecious. Leaves distichous, shortly petiolate, stipulate. Inflorescences axillary
clusters representing reduced cymules, unisexual or bisexual, when bisexual the first or central
flower being female and the others male. Male flowers: several in each cymule; pedicels slender;
calyx-lobes 5 (or 6), with a single midvein; petals absent; disc annular or patelliform, partially
adnate to the calyx; stamens 5, united at base into a column; anthers extrorse, laterally dehiscent;
pollen grains tricolporate, finely reticulate, colpus transversalis elliptic and costate; pistillode
projecting from the top of the staminal column. Female flowers: solitary or rarely 2-together;
pedicels long; calyx-lobes 5; disc annular; ovary glabrous, 3-locular; ovules 2 in each locule,
anatropous; styles 3, each bifid; stigma clavate. Fruits capsular, thin-walled, conspicuously
reticulate-veined; seeds 1 (when one ovule in each locule get aborted) or 2 per locule, ecarunculate,
strongly curved and reniform in outline, deeply or shallowly foveolate-pitted; embryo embedded
in copious endosperm; cotyledons flat, thin, broader than radicle.
Disjunct in New World (Mexico to Columbia and Brazil) and Old World (South India, Sri
Lanka and NE. India), ca 28 species; 4 species in India.
Literature.
WEBSTER, G. L. (1965). A revision of the genus Meineckia (Euphorbiaceae). Acta
Bot. Neerl. 14: 323 - 365.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1 a. Leaves acute, subacute, rounded or apiculate at apex at apex, 2 - 6 cm long; fruiting pedicels 1 – 2.5 cm long
