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Myrtaceae

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Book cover Flowering Plants. Eudicots

Part of the book series: The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants ((FAMILIES GENERA,volume 10))

Abstract

Trees or shrubs, frequently with conspicuous oil glands. Leaves opposite, alternate (disjunct-opposite or spiral), rarely whorled, simple, entire, pinnately veined (triplinerved in a few genera). Stipules absent or minute and inconspicuous. Indumentum absent or of simple, thick-walled, unicellular hairs; other variants, such as biramous (two-armed), stellate, infundibular or multicellular hairs, are less common and occur in a few genera only. Inflorescences mostly determinate, terminal or axillary, panicles, thyrsoids, metabotryoids, botryoids, dichasia, triads or single flowers, sometimes further condensed into conflorescences of various types. Flowers mostly bisexual, occasionally unisexual, predominantly actinomorphic, 4–5-merous (very rarely 6–12-merous); hypanthium present, fused in varying degrees to the ovary; sepals free, occasionally fused into a calyptra, imbricate, mostly persistent; petals imbricate, usually distinct and caducous, occasionally persistent, sometimes fused as part of a calyptra, sometimes cohering and falling as a unit at anthesis; stamens usually multiseriate, numerous and free, sometimes in clusters or fused into fascicles opposite the petals, rarely reduced to be equal to or less than the number of perianth segments; anthers dorsifixed and versatile, less commonly basifixed and not versatile; dehiscing by slits, rarely by pores or valves; ovary usually inferior to half-inferior (superior in Psiloxyloideae) with 1–5 carpels, rarely more; placentation parietal, axile or basal; style terminal or set into a pit on the ovary summit, rarely gynobasic; stigma small or capitate, rarely lobed; ovules 2–many, anatropous, hemitropous or campylotropous, integuments two, rarely one. Fruit a dry, loculicidal capsule, a dry indehiscent fruit, or a one- to many-seeded fleshy berry (rarely drupe-like). Seeds one to many; endosperm mostly absent; embryo straight, curved or coiled; cotyledons flat or variously folded, thin (occasionally broad and leafy) or thick and fleshy, the latter sometimes fused.

Myrtaceae Juss., Gen.: 322 (1789) (‘Myrti’).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Botanic Gardens Trust, Mrs. Macquaries Road, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

    Peter G. Wilson

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  1. Peter G. Wilson
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Correspondence to Peter G. Wilson .

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  1. , Biozentrum Klein-Flottbek, Universität Hamburg, Ohnhorststr. 18, Hamburg, 22609, Germany

    Klaus Kubitzki

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Wilson, P.G. (2010). Myrtaceae. In: Kubitzki, K. (eds) Flowering Plants. Eudicots. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, vol 10. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14397-7_14

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