Geijera Schott

Scientific Description

Family Rutaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; evergreen, or deciduous; bearing essential oils. Plants unarmed. Mesophytic, or xerophytic. Leaves alternate; leathery, or ‘herbaceous’; petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted; aromatic; simple. Leaf blades when simple dissected, or entire; when simple/dissected pinnatifid, or much-divided; pinnately veined, or one-veined. Leaves without stipules; without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present, or absent; complex hairs absent (trichomes simple). Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar, or tri-lacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose, or racemose. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary; dichasial, many-branched. Flowers bracteate; small to medium-sized; fragrant; regular, or somewhat irregular. The floral asymmetry when noticeable, involving the perianth and involving the androecium (not K). Flowers 5 merous; cyclic. Floral receptacle developing a gynophore (associated with the disk), or with neither androphore nor gynophore. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present (shallowly 4–5-lobed); intrastaminal; annular (sometimes one-sided), or of separate members. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5 (minute); 1 -whorled; polysepalous, or gamosepalous; imbricate; regular; with the median member posterior. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous (spreading); imbricate (the odd petal anterior); regular, or unequal but not bilabiate; white. Androecium (4–)5. Androecial members unbranched, or branched (? by the splitting of simple primordia); free of the perianth; all equal, or markedly unequal; free of one another, or coherent (? the filaments usually more or less basally connate); 1 - adelphous, or 3–12 - adelphous; 1 -whorled, or 2 -whorled. Stamens (4–)5; isomerous with the perianth; alternisepalous, or oppositisepalous (? when the outer whorl lost). Filaments glabrous; inserted below the disc, short. Anthers dorsifixed, or basifixed (? more or less); versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse (and longitudinally dehiscent); tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium (4–)5 carpelled. The pistil 4–5 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous (carpels more or less united, partly immersed in the disk); semicarpous, or synovarious, or synstylovarious, or eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 4–5 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1, or 3–5; free, or partially joined; apical (styles affixed near apex of inner margin of carpels). Stigmas (4–)5 - lobed; capitate (lobulate); wet type, or dry type; papillate, or non-papillate; Group II type, or Group IV type. Placentation axile. Ovules 2 per locule; pendulous to ascending; epitropous; collateral, or superposed, or biseriate; arillate, or non-arillate; anatropous, or hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy, or non-fleshy; when semicarpous an aggregate, or not an aggregate. The fruiting carpel dehiscent; (when semicarpous) a follicle, or drupaceous, or baccate. Fruit when syncarpous, a schizocarp (cocci apically dehiscent). Mericarps 1–4; 1-seeded, comprising berrylets, or comprising follicles, or comprising nutlets, or comprising drupelets. Fruit 1–4 seeded. Seeds endospermic, or non-endospermic. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo chlorophyllous, or achlorophyllous; straight, or curved, or bent. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar, or cryptocotylar.

Physiology, biochemistry. Aluminium accumulation not found. Photosynthetic pathway: C₃.

Geography, cytology, number of species. A genus of 5 species.