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- Reference
- Samenpflanzen 90 (1910)
- Name Status
- Not Current
Scientific Description
Common name. Butterfly-bush Family.
Family Sometimes included in Loganiaceae.
Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs. Young stems cylindrical, or tetragonal. Leaves opposite, or whorled; petiolate; simple. Leaf blades pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves with stipules, or without stipules (the stipules often reduced, but then represented by a ‘stipular line’ linking the opposing leaf bases). Stipules interpetiolar. Leaf blade margins entire, or serrate, or dentate. Leaf anatomy. Complex hairs peltate, or stellate. 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 aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes, or in racemes, or in heads, or in panicles. The terminal inflorescence unit usually cymose. Inflorescences cymose, racemose, paniculate or capitate. Flowers bracteate; bracteolate; regular; 4 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Hypogynous disk small or absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 8; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 4; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; 4 blunt-lobed; imbricate; regular. Corolla 4; 1 -whorled; gamopetalous; imbricate; regular. Androecium 4. Androecial members adnate (epipetalous); free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 4; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; all alternating with the corolla members; filantherous, or with sessile anthers. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 2 carpelled, or 4 carpelled (rarely). The pistil 2 celled, or 4 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious, or eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular, or 4 locular. Gynoecium when G2 median. Styles 1; attenuate from the ovary; apical. Placentation axile. Ovules 20–50 per locule (or more); pendulous, or ascending; hemianatropous.
Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy, or non-fleshy; dehiscent, or indehiscent; a capsule (usually), or a berry, or a drupe. Capsules loculicidal. Seeds endospermic; winged, or wingless. Cotyledons 2. Embryo achlorophyllous (1/3); straight. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.
Geography, cytology, number of species. World distribution: widespread, tropical and warm temperate. X = 19. 150 species.