Canarium L.

Scientific Description

Family Burseraceae.

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs, or lianas; evergreen, or deciduous; bearing essential oils (in the bark); resinous. Leaves cauline. Stem internodes solid. Leaves alternate, or whorled (rarely); spiral; petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted, or not gland-dotted; aromatic (resinous); simple, or compound (mostly); unifoliolate (rarely), or ternate (trifoliate), or pinnate; imparipinnate. Leaflets elliptic to ovate, or oblong. Leaf blades oblique at the base (usually, with the longer side decurrent). Leaves with stipules (usually), or without stipules. Stipules caducous. Leaf blade margins entire, or crenate, or serrate, or dentate. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present, or absent; glandular hairs present. Extra-floral nectaries absent. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite, or functionally male, or functionally female, or hermaphrodite, functionally male, and functionally female. Unisexual flowers present, or absent. Plants hermaphrodite, or dioecious, or polygamomonoecious. Female flowers with staminodes (with 6 staminodes). Male flowers with pistillodes, or without pistillodes.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes, or in racemes, or in spikes, or in panicles. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary. Flowers sessile; bracteate. Bracts deciduous. Flowers bracteolate; small; regular; 3–5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic, or pentacyclic. Hypogynous disk present, or absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 6; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 3; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; blunt-lobed; imbricate, or valvate; campanulate; regular. Calyx lobes triangular. Corolla present; 3; 1 -whorled; alternating with the calyx; polypetalous; imbricate (usually), or valvate; regular; green (yellowish), or white. Petals oblong to obovate; clawed (rarely). Fertile stamens present, or absent. Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 6. Androecial members epipetalous or sometimes adnate to the disc; all equal, or markedly unequal; free of one another, or coherent; when coherent 1 - adelphous (via connate filaments); 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens, or including staminodes (the members opposite the petals sometimes reduced). Staminodes when present, (1–)3. Stamens 6; diplostemonous, or isomerous with the perianth; on the margin of, or outside the disc. Anthers dorsifixed; versatile (slightly), or non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; tetrasporangiate; appendaged, or unappendaged. Fertile gynoecium present, or absent. Gynoecium (2–)3–5 carpelled. The pistil 3 celled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth to isomerous with the perianth. Gynoecium syncarpous (usually); synstylovarious, or eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 3 locular (usually); stipitate (often). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1; 3 - lobed. Placentation axile. Ovules 2 per locule; pendulous; epitropous; with ventral raphe (micropyle superior); non-arillate; hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe, or a capsule; 3 celled; 1 seeded (per cell). Seeds non-endospermic (or almost so). Cotyledons 2.

Etymology. From the Malay Canari, name of one species.