Theaceae

Abstract

Trees or shrubs, accumulating aluminium; indumentum of unicellular hairs or 0. Leaves spiral or distichous, simple, usually evergreen, usually coriaceous, margins toothed, rarely entire, with a small, deciduous gland associated with each tooth; stipules absent. Flowers hermaphroditic, solitary, axillary, large and showy, prophylls two, or several bracteoles intergrading with calyx and corolla; calyx of five or more sepals, imbricate, connate or distinct basally, often persistent in fruit, usually thick, concave, equal to unequal; corolla of five, rarely numerous petals, distinct or connate basally, imbricate; stamens 20+, free, rarely connate, often adnate to base of corolla, anthers versatile, rarely basifixed, opening by longitudinal slits; pollen tricolporate, pseudopollen present; gynoecium syncarpous, (3-)5(–10)-carpellate, ovary superior, placentation mostly axile; 2-few ovules/carpel, ovules bitegmic, tenuinucellate, styles simple, branched, or stylodia, stigmas usually lobed. Fruit a loculicidal capsule, rarely irregularly dehiscent or a drupe, columella persistent, rarely none; seeds few, sometimes winged; testa vascularised, more or less lignified; endosperm nuclear, usually slight; embryo straight; germination epigeal, rarely hypogeal; n = 15, 18. About 7 genera and 195–460 species; most speciose in Southeast Asia, but also Indo-Malesia, SE U.S.A., and the Caribbean and tropical America.