Aphanopetalaceae

Abstract

Scrambling or viny shrubs, glabrous throughout; nodes unilacunar, 1(+2) trace; stems with conspicuous raised lenticels. Leaves opposite, simple, serrate to mostly entire, shortly petiolate; stipules 0 but with minute colleters at each side of the nodes. Inflorescences lax axillary panicles, or flowers solitary; pedicels at the mid with 2 prophylls. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite, tetramerous, half-inferior; sepals largely separate, imbricate at lower level, greatly enlarged in fruit and persistent, borne in pairs at slightly different levels, their basal parts coalescing with basal portions of petals (when present) and stamens into a short floral tube which is adnate to the lower half of the ovary wall; petals minute with reduced blade or completely absent (even within the same individual); stamens 8; anthers oblong, 2-lobed at base,almost basi fixed, tetrasporangiate,with connective protrusion, dehiscing with longitudinal slits, latrorse-introrse; gynoecium of 4 laterally concrescent carpels; ovary one quarter- to half-inferior, 4-locular, deeply 4-furrowed, gradually tapering into a 4-grooved, apically 4-lobed style with 4 canals; stigmas terminal, highly papillate; ovules 1 per locule, descending, suspended on axile placenta with long, thick funiculus, bitegmic, anatropous. Fruit nut-like, hard, 1-locular and 1-seeded, with the sepals persistent; seed hippocrepiform or reniform; embryo curved; endosperm fleshy.