Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Unarmed trees or shrubs with latex, pubescence of malpighiaceous hairs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Spirally arranged. Margins entire. Petioles with decurrent, adaxial wing forming channel or groove. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in fasciculate inflorescences, these axillary or below the leaves. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or unisexual. Calyx of 4–5 sepals, in a single whorl, distinct, strongly imbricate or quincuncial in bud. Corolla 5–10(–12)-lobed, tube shorter than lobes, lobes imbricate in bud, entire or irregularly lobed. Stamens 5– 10(–12), adnate to corolla tube and usually opposite the lobes, included or exserted, staminodes 1–5, alternate with the Stamens and fixed between them or in the corolla lobe sinuses, sometimes petaloid; anthers usually extrorse. Ovary superior, 3–5(6)-celled, placentation axile or basi–ventral; ovules 1 per cell; style 1; stigma capitate or slightly lobed.

Fruit: Berries. Seeds ± laterally compressed; with a hard; smooth; shiny seed coat and roughened scar area; scar adaxial; basi–ventral; or basal; narrow or broad; embryo vertical; oblique; or horizontal; with thin foliaceous cotyledons and exserted radicle; endosperm copious.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: