Buxaceae

Abstract

Evergreen shrubs or trees, rarely subshrubs or rhizomatous perennial herbs, glabrous, sometimes with uni- or multicellular hairs, monoecious, rarely dioecious. Leaves alternate or decussate, petiolate, rarely sessile, entire, rarely dentate, pinnately veined, less often tripliveined, estipulate. Flowers in axillary or terminal botryoids or spikes, the male above the female ones, or one female above the male, subtended by decurrent bracts, the female with prophylls. Flowers actinomorphic, hypogynous; male:tepals 4, decussate, rarely wanting; stamens free, 4, 6 or 8, antetepalous, or rarely up to 45 in a more complex arrangement, if 6, then two pairs opposite the inner tepals, often inserted around a pistillode; anthers dorsi fixed, dithecal, tetrasporangiate, longitudinally dehiscent, borne on long filaments, rarely sessile; pistillode present or wanting; female: often larger than the male, fewer or solitary; tepals 4–6; ovary syncarpous with free stylodia, (2)3(4)-carpellate, sometimes with false septa; placentation axile; stylodia subulate, divergent, rarely connate at the base, stigmatic area decurrent along the ventral fold; ovules usually 2 per locule, anatropous. Fruit a dry capsule with persistent stylodia, loculicidally dehiscent into 2-horned valves, or indehiscent, subdrupaceous or berry-like. Seeds black or dark, frequently carunculate; endospermcopious, fleshy, oily; embryo straight, cotyledons flat.