Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, sometimes scandent, usually glabrous.

Stems: Stems sometimes producing rootlets or thorns.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, alternate, or sometimes fascicled. Lower surfaces occasionally black–dotted. Margins crenate or rarely entire. Veins pinnate, palmate, or 1-veined. Petioles present or absent. Stipules small, entire to laciniate, quickly deciduous, or sometimes absent.

Flowers: Flowers actinomorphic, in terminal or axillary, cymose or occasionally racemose inflorescences, rarely solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or unisexual (and then plants dioecious or sometimes polygamous). Calyx 4–5-lobed, usually persistent. Corolla of 4–5 petals, quickly deciduous or sometimes persistent, distinct, rarely slightly connate at base or occasionally adnate to the staminal ring, rarely absent. Stamens (2)3–5(10), alternate with the petals; filaments inserted on or within the nectary disk; anthers dithecal or rarely monothecal, opening by longitudinal slits, rarely apically. Ovary superior to partly inferior, 2–5-carpellate, with as many cells, placentation axile; ovules (1)2(3) per cell, erect or occasionally pendulous, anatropous.

Fruit: Fruit of various types; a loculicidal capsules; samara; berry; or drupaceous. Seeds usually orange or reddish orange; rarely white; often with an aril; sometimes winged; endosperm copious and oily; rarely absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: