Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, rarely scandent, ± thorny.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate or opposite. Surfaces often bearing small, rounded, glandular spots in lines parallel to or at margins or near base. Margins entire to serrate or crenate. Pinnately veined or with 3 primary veins from base. Petiolate. Stipules lateral and basal, rarely interpetiolar, usually caducous.

Flowers: Flowers in small thyrses or cymes. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx of 5 sepals, deltate, valvate in bud, arising as lobes on floral tube. Corolla of 5 petals, yellowish green to greenish yellow or white. Stamens 5, opposite the petals; anthers usually hooded or clasped by the petals; filaments distinct, adnate to base of petals. Ovary partly inferior, 3-celled; ovules 1 per cell, basal and erect, anatropous; style 3-lobed.

Fruit: Fruit globose to subglobose; sometimes shallowly 3–lobed; the lower ⅕–½ enclosed by the nectary disk and floral tube; dehiscing along the ventral; axile; and longitudinal sutures; and occasionally also along the mid–dorsal line; mesocarp thin and dry; leathery to brittle; endocarp crustaceous or cartilaginous. Seeds brown or black; usually strongly convex dorsally; seed coat thick and bony.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: