Information

Herbs, shrubs or trees, usually pubescent, sometimes stellately. Leaves alternate, simple, often glandular; stipules small or absent. Flowers solitary to numerous, axillary and sometimes terminal, in racemes, panicles or cymes, regular, hermaphrodite, sometimes heterostylous. Calyx 5-merous, connate at least near the base, lobes imbricate in aestivation (2 wholly inside, 2 wholly outside). Petals (contorted in aestivation) and stamens 5, both adnate to the calyx-tube forming an hypanthium (see Fig. 1, p. 3) which may be very short (0.25 mm.). Filaments often flattened or narrowly winged; anthers introrse, dorsifixed, 2-celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary superior, unilocular; placentae usually parietal and pluriovulate, rarely basal and uniovulate (Stapfiella only); ovules anatropous. Styles 3; stigmas apically divided (at least in our species), usually fimbriate or laciniate. Fruit a 3-valved capsule. Seeds arillate; aril dry (in our species a unilateral scarious membrane); testa hard, either with a raised rectangular network, the spaces of which form longitudinal lines of contiguous pits, or longitudinally striate-submuricate (Stapfiella only).

Information

Herbs, shrubs or trees, usually pubescent, sometimes stellately. Leaves alternate, simple, often glandular; stipules small or absent. Flowers solitary to numerous, axillary and sometimes terminal, in racemes, panicles or cymes, regular, hermaphrodite, sometimes heterostylous. Calyx 5-merous, connate at least near the base, lobes imbricate in aestivation (2 wholly inside, 2 wholly outside). Petals (contorted in aestivation) and stamens 5, both adnate to the calyx-tube forming an hypanthium (see Fig. 1, p. 3) which may be very short (0.25 mm.). Filaments often flattened or narrowly winged; anthers introrse, dorsifixed, 2-celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary superior, unilocular; placentae usually parietal and pluriovulate, rarely basal and uniovulate (Stapfiella only); ovules anatropous. Styles 3; stigmas apically divided (at least in our species), usually fimbriate or laciniate. Fruit a 3-valved capsule. Seeds arillate; aril dry (in our species a unilateral scarious membrane); testa hard, either with a raised rectangular network, the spaces of which form longitudinal lines of contiguous pits, or longitudinally striate-submuricate (Stapfiella only).

Information

Herbs, shrubs or trees, usually pubescent, sometimes stellately. Leaves alternate, simple, often glandular; stipules small or absent. Flowers solitary to numerous, axillary and sometimes terminal, in racemes, panicles or cymes, regular, hermaphrodite, sometimes heterostylous. Calyx 5-merous, connate at least near the base, lobes imbricate in aestivation (2 wholly inside, 2 wholly outside). Petals (contorted in aestivation) and stamens 5, both adnate to the calyx-tube forming an hypanthium (see Fig. 1, p. 3) which may be very short (0.25 mm.). Filaments often flattened or narrowly winged; anthers introrse, dorsifixed, 2-celled, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary superior, unilocular; placentae usually parietal and pluriovulate, rarely basal and uniovulate (Stapfiella only); ovules anatropous. Styles 3; stigmas apically divided (at least in our species), usually fimbriate or laciniate. Fruit a 3-valved capsule. Seeds arillate; aril dry (in our species a unilateral scarious membrane); testa hard, either with a raised rectangular network, the spaces of which form longitudinal lines of contiguous pits, or longitudinally striate-submuricate (Stapfiella only).