Planchonia Blume

Scientific Description

Family Lecythidaceae.

Sometimes included in Barringtoniaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; evergreen (K), or deciduous (A). Stem internodes solid. Leaves alternate (usually crowded at ends of branches, or spirally inserted); spiral; petiolate; not gland-dotted; simple. Leaf blades dissected, or entire; oblanceolate; elliptic (sometimes), or ovate to obovate; pinnately veined; cross-venulate; cuneate at the base. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins entire to crenate (or crenulate). Leaf anatomy. Hairs absent. Extra-floral nectaries absent. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

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

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary, or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in racemes (short), or in spikes (interrupted). Inflorescences terminal; inflorescence conspicuous, few-flowered. Flowers pedicellate; bracteate. Bracts persistent to deciduous (oblong). Flowers bracteolate; medium-sized to large; regular to very irregular; if irregular, asymmetric. The floral asymmetry involving the androecium, or involving the perianth and involving the androecium. Flowers cyclic; pentacyclic, or polycyclic. Free hypanthium present; obconic, or campanulate, or turbinate; adnate to ovary. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 8; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 4; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous (scarcely connate at the base); deeply 4 blunt-lobed; tubular. Calyx lobes elliptic (to semi-elliptic), or oblong, or ovate, or orbicular. Corolla present; 4; 1 -whorled; polypetalous; imbricate; white, or cream, or pink (or pale pink). Petals oblong to obovate. Androecial members indefinite in number. Androecium 50–100 (‘many’, in several series). Androecial members maturing centrifugally; free of the perianth, or adnate (to the corolla); markedly unequal (outermost whorl longer, innermost whorl shorter); free of one another (B), or coherent (shortly united); 1–20 - adelphous; 3–5 -whorled (‘in several series’). Androecium including staminodes. Staminodes 20–50 (outermost whorl or innermost whorl or both sterile). Stamens 20–100 (numerous, multiseriate); all more or less similar in shape; polystemonous. Anthers basifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; latrorse; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 2–4(–6) carpelled. The pistil 3–4 celled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth to isomerous with the perianth. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; inferior. Ovary plurilocular; 3–4 locular. Epigynous disk present. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1. Placentation axile to apical. Ovules several; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy (fibrous); indehiscent; a berry (fibrous, one-seeded); 3–4 celled; several embedded in fleshy pulp. Seeds non-endospermic; woody and large. Embryo well differentiated.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Paleotropical.

Etymology. After Jules Emile Planchon (1823–88), French botanist who had charge of Sir William Hooker's herbarium at Kew 1844–48, upon which Bentham called heavily in the writing of Flora Australiensis. Later director of the botanical gardens at Montpellier; introduced many eucalypts into France.