Aextoxicaceae

Abstract

Dioecious trees; twigs, the lower side of leaves, in florescences and flowers including the ovary covered with ferrugineous scales. Leaves alternate to subopposite, simple, entire, conduplicate and sometimes minutely peltate, pinnately veined, estipulate. Inflorescences racemes or botryoids usually in groups of 3 or more, branching from axils of basal prophylls, the male ones longer and more abundant than the female ones; bracts very small, rounded. Flowers (4)5(6)-merous, hypogynous, regular, enveloped in bud by a firm calyptrate bract; sepals orbicular, free, thin, strongly imbricate, caducous; petals broadly clawed, incurved in bud, oblong, with thick midrib, imbricate, persistent; male flowers: stamens 5, antesepalous, alternating with well-developed fleshy, reniform nectary glands; anthers dorsi fixed, introrse, opening by short slits towards the apex, with persistent septum between pollen sacs; gynoecium vestigial; female flowers: staminodia fleshy, alternating with the nectary glands; gynoecium 1-carpellate, style short, strongly de flexed to one side and appressed to the ovary, apically bifid; ovary with 2 pendulous ovules; ovules anatropous, with a long extended endostome. Fruits dry, indehiscent, one-seeded; endosperm ruminate, oily-proteinaceous; embryo well-developed, cotyledons flattened, cordate-orbicular. n = 16. Monotypic, Aextoxicon punctatum Ruiz & Pav., a tree of the coastal and lake region of southern Chile and adjacent Argentina.

Keywords

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Including personal observations by P.F. Stevens and W. Stuppy.