Glochidion J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.

Scientific Description

Family Euphorbiaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; non-laticiferous and without coloured juice. Plants succulent, or non-succulent. Mesophytic, or xerophytic. Leaves small to medium-sized; alternate; spiral, or distichous; somewhat chartaceous; shortly petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted, or not gland-dotted; simple. Leaf blades entire; pinnately veined. Leaves with stipules. Stipules scaly, or leafy; caducous. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Urticating hairs present, or absent. Stem anatomy. Nodes tri-lacunar, or unilacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring, or anomalous; from a single cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers functionally male, or functionally female. Unisexual flowers present. Plants monoecious, or dioecious. Male flowers without pistillodes. Entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in small clusters. Inflorescences axillary (or supra-axillary). Flowers pedicellate, or subsessile (sometimes, in female flowers); bracteate, or ebracteate; minute to small; regular. Floral receptacle developing an androphore, or with neither androphore nor gynophore (? depending on interpretation). Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk absent. Perianth sepaline; 6; 1 -whorled. Calyx 6 (in male flowers); 1 -whorled; gamosepalous (towards the base with the lobes in 2 scarcely differentiated series); regular; yellow (in G. disparipes). Fertile stamens present, or absent (female flowers). Androecium 3–8. Androecial members branched, or unbranched; free of the perianth; free of one another (if filaments interpreted as arising from an androphore), or coherent (filaments connate into a column). Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 3–8; reduced in number relative to the adjacent perianth to isomerous with the perianth; erect in bud, or inflexed in bud. Anthers linear; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; extrorse, or introrse; bisporangiate, or tetrasporangiate; appendaged (formed by the elongated, erect connective); apiculate. Fertile gynoecium present, or absent (male flowers). Gynoecium 3–15 carpelled. The pistil 3–15 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious, or synstylovarious; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 3–15 locular. Styles (3–)6(–15); partially joined (united into a short or long cone or column, lobed or toothed at the apex, or into a clavate or globose structure), or free (very occasionally); usually simple; apical. Stigmas 3, or 6(–15) (? free or almost so); often 2 - lobed; dry type; papillate, or non-papillate; Group II type. Placentation axile, or apical. Ovules 2 per locule; pendulous; epitropous; with ventral raphe, or with dorsal raphe; collateral; non-arillate; hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy (coriaceous, crustaceous or somewhat woody); dehiscent, or a schizocarp; a capsule; many-celled; elastically dehiscent (schizocarpic capsules often splitting elastically), or passively dehiscent. Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Seeds non-arillate. Cotyledons 2 (usually wider than the radicle). Embryo straight, or curved. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar, or cryptocotylar.

Physiology, biochemistry. Mustard-oils present, or absent.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. Not endemic to Australia. Australian states and territories: Western Australia, Northern Territory, and Queensland. Northern Botanical Province.