Connaraceae

Abstract

Small trees, shrubs, or lianas, evergreen or sometimes deciduous. Leaves alternate, imparipinnate, trifoliolate or unifoliolate, exstipulate, exstipellate; petiole pulvinate at base; petiolules entirely pulvinate; leaflets entire, opposite or not. Inflorescences axillary, sometimes clustered near the tip of the branches, occasionally cauliflorous, usually paniculate, sometimes less branched and resembling a raceme, or condensed. Flowers actinomorphic, 5(4)-merous, bisexual (unisexual), heterodistylous or heterotristylous (homostylous); pedicels usually jointed, prophylls 0; sepals imbricate or valvate, free or united at base (in Rourea solanderi almost entirely fused in bud), caducous to persistent and sometimes accrescent in fruit; petals imbricate, free to connivent near the base; stamens in 2 whorls, free or united at base, the outer antesepalous, longer than the inner antepetalous ones, the latter sometimes staminodial, anthers dorsifixed, dehiscing lengthwise, introrse; gynoecium 1- or 5-carpellate, superior; carpels free, each carpel with a terminal stylodium and capitate stigma; ovules 2 per carpel, collateral, nearly basal to nearly apical, anatropous to hemitropous, micropyle always directed upwards. Fruit consisting of 1-5 follicles, dry or more or less fleshy, usually dehiscing by a ventral suture, sometimes along the dorsal side as well, rarely circumscissile at the base (some Rourea), or indehiscent (Hemandradenia, Jollydora). Seed 1 per follicle, sometimes 2 (Jollydora); testa partly to entirely fleshy (sarcotesta), yellow to red; endosperm present or not; hilum lateral to basal; cotyledons thin and flat to planoconvex; radicle situated at the margin of the cotyledons and then apical, ventral or dorsal, or central and covered by the cotyledons. x = 14, 16.