Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, sometimes climbing.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple or compound (pinnate or trifoliate). Opposite or rarely alternate. Surfaces covered with peltate glands especially on lower surface, sometimes with clusters of secretory hairs forming extrafloral nectaries. Margins often entire. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in cymose inflorescences, these often decussate, fasciculate, or paniculate, sometimes flowers solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or occasionally unisexual (and then plants dioecious), actinomorphic. Calyx lobes 4(5), valvate, rarely Calyx absent. Corolla lobes 4(–12), valvate or imbricate, sometimes petals nearly distinct or absent. Stamens 2(4), inserted on corolla tube alternate with the lobes; anthers dithecal, oriented back–to–back, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, with as many cells, placentation axile; ovules (1)2(4 to numerous) per cell, anatropous or amphitropous; style 1, terminal, or sometimes absent; stigma dry, 2-lobed or entire.

Fruit: Loculicidal or circumscissile capsules; samara; berry; or drupe. Seeds 1–4; rarely more; endosperm oily or absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: