Microcybe Turcz.

Scientific Description

Family Rutaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Under- shrubs; evergreen, or deciduous; bearing essential oils. Mesophytic, or xerophytic. Leaves small; alternate; leathery, or ‘herbaceous’; petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted; aromatic; simple. Leaf blades entire; pinnately veined, or one-veined. Leaves without stipules, or with stipules. Stipules when present, intrapetiolar; represented by glands. Leaf blade margins revolute. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present; complex hairs present. Complex hairs stellate (to lepidote). 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 heads (subtended by foliar bracts). The terminal inflorescence unit cymose, or racemose. Inflorescences terminal; compact. Flowers sessile; bracteate; small; fragrant; regular, or somewhat irregular. The floral asymmetry when noticeable, involving the perianth and involving the androecium (not K). Flowers usually 5 merous; cyclic. Floral receptacle developing a gynophore (associated with the disk), or with neither androphore nor gynophore. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx usually 5; 1 -whorled; polysepalous, or gamosepalous (below); imbricate; regular; with the median member posterior. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous; slightly imbricate; regular, or unequal but not bilabiate. Petals narrow elliptic. Androecium 10. Androecial members free of the perianth; all equal, or markedly unequal; free of one another; 2 -whorled. Stamens 10 (exceeding petals); diplostemonous; alternisepalous. Filaments glabrous, or hairy (stellate-pilose). Anthers more or less basifixed; versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse, or latrorse; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 2 carpelled; apocarpous (carpels not apiculate); eu-apocarpous; superior. Carpel (1–)2–100 ovuled. Placentation of the free carpels marginal. Stigmas wet type, or dry type; papillate, or non-papillate; Group II type, or Group IV type. Ovules pendulous to ascending; epitropous; when two or more per cell, collateral, or superposed, or biseriate; arillate, or non-arillate; anatropous, or hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy, or non-fleshy; an aggregate. The fruiting carpel dehiscent, or indehiscent; baccate (cocci hemispherical). Seeds oblong to reniform; 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 3 species.