Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Monoecious shrubs or trees.

Stems: Rarely stems herbaceous, with milky sap, often with tuberous roots.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, peltate. Margins usually palmately lobed. Long-petiolate. Stipules often minute.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal or sometimes axillary panicles staminate flowers racemose along the central axis pistillate flowers on lateral branches. Flowers unisexual. Calyx lobes 5, imbricate, often petaloid. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens in staminate flowers 10, in 2 series, distinct; anthers introrse pistillate flowers staminodes sometimes present. Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), 3-celled; ovules 1 per cell; styles 3, connate below; stigmas dilated and lacerate. Staminate flower ovary absent or vestigial.

Fruit: Dehiscent capsules; sometimes winged. Seeds smooth; seed coat thin and crustaceous.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: