Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Trees or shrubs, with an indument of simple or stellate hairs.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Margins entire. Veins pinnate. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences terminal, leaf–opposed, extra-axillary, or sometimes cauliflorous, never axillary, 1–flowered or in few–flowered clusters. pedicel usually short. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx of 3 sepals; sepals hypogynous, small, valvate. Corolla of 6 petals in 2 whorls or inner whorl rudimentary or absent, free or connate at base; outer petals valvate, fleshy but leathery when dry, connivent or somewhat spreading, inside basally concave, margin thick; inner petals imbricate or valvate. Stamens numerous, spirally imbricate, in several series; filament short and thick; connectives apically convex or apiculate; anther locules 2, opening by a longitudinal slit. Ovary superior; carpels many, often connate; ovule 1 per carpel, basal; styles short, thick, clavate; stigmas muriculate.

Fruit: Fruit syncarpous; surface covered with knobs; bulges; spines; or less often smooth. Seeds many per syncarp; embedded in edible pulp; endosperm copious; ruminate; embryo minute; near hilum.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: