Abstract
Dioecious, slender shrubby perennials from short rhizomes. Roots fibrous. Rhizome with monocotyledonous secondary thickening. Stems thin, branching, erect or dextrorsely twisting. Leaves alternate, distichous, shortly petiolate, without a sheathing base; blades ovate; veins numerous, parallel, close, with many cross-veins, midrib prominenet. Inflorescence an axillary bostryx or flowers borne singly. Flowers small, hypogynous, actinomorphic, articulated on the pedicels with a short pericladium; perianth marcescent, not twisted after anthesis; tepals in 2 whorls of 3, subequal, united for about 2/3 of their length, white or pale green. Stamens 6 in 2 whorls; filaments adnate to the tepals; anthers 2-thecate, 4-sporangiate, basal-dorsifixed, introrse, dehiscing longitudinally by slits. Gynoecium of 3 united carpels, ovary 3-locular with septal nectaries; style simple, stigma 3-lobate; ovules few per locule, anatropous, in 2 rows on axile placentas. Fruit a berry. Seeds few to numerous, medium-sized, angular, pale brown/yellow drying blackish brown; embryo clavate, about 2/3 as long as the seed; endosperm copious, without starch.
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Conran, J.G. (1998). Behniaceae. In: Kubitzki, K. (eds) Flowering Plants · Monocotyledons. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03533-7_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03533-7_18
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