The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
~ Rutaceae p.p.
Habit and leaf form. Tall, fastigiate or subpyramidal shrubs. Leaves alternate; leathery; gland-dotted; simple. Lamina entire. Leaves stipulate, or exstipulate. Stipules if present, caducous.
Leaf anatomy. Stomata present; anomocytic. Hairs present. Complex hairs present; peltate (short-stalked, with siliceous inclusions).
Lamina with secretory cavities (also with scattered fatty bodies). Secretory cavities containing resin; Secretory cavities lysigenous. The mesophyll with sclerencymatous idioblasts (traversed by fibre-like, simple or branched sclereids representing prolongations from the vein ends, and many of the mesophyll cells with silicified walls).
Stem anatomy. Nodes multilacunar. Internal phloem absent. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring, or anomalous; via concentric cambia, or from a single cambial ring. ‘Included’ phloem present. Xylem with vessels. Vessel end-walls simple. Wood parenchyma largely apotracheal, or paratracheal (then very scanty-diffuse). Sieve-tube plastids P-type; type I (b).
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes, or in racemes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose, or racemose. Inflorescences axillary (or supra-axillary); racemes, or racemelike cymes with terminal flowers. Flowers regular; cyclic; polycyclic (by virtue of the androecium). Free hypanthium present (short, the flowers slightly perigynous). Hypogynous disk absent.
Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10 (or the calyx more or less entire); 2 whorled. Calyx basically 5 (but the lobes short or obscure); 1 whorled; gamosepalous; five lobulate to blunt-lobed, or entire; regular; imbricate (when lobed), or open in bud. Corolla 5 (sepal-like); 1 whorled; polypetalous (the petals glandular-punctate); imbricate and valvate (slightly imbricate below and valvate above, or cochlear); regular; deciduous (caducous).
Androecium 25–50. Androecial members when the stamens not developing more or less simultaneously, weakly maturing centripetally; free of the perianth; free of one another; more or less 3 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 25–50; polystemonous; erect in bud; shortly filantherous (the filaments flattened, persistent). Anthers basifixed (elongated, apically emarginate, caducous); non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; tetrasporangiate. Pollen shed as single grains. Pollen grains aperturate; 3(–4) aperturate; colporate; 3-celled.
Gynoecium 1 carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth. The pistil 1 celled. Gynoecium monomerous; of one carpel; superior. Carpel stylate; with a gynobasic style (the style thick, virtually basal, externally stigmatic for half to all of its length); 1(–2) ovuled (the second, if present, abortive). Placentation basal. Ovules epitropous; orthotropous, or hemianatropous; unitegmic.
Fruit scarcely fleshy, or non-fleshy. The fruiting carpel indehiscent; drupaceous (globular, borne on the woody pedicel and shortly stipitate within the cupular hypanthium, the exocarp thin and eventually crustaceous, the endocarp slightly woody). Fruit 1 seeded. Seeds non-endospermic. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2 (thick, fleshy). Embryo bent (the radicle bent inwards towards the hilum).
Physiology, biochemistry. Cyanogenic.
Geography, cytology. Neotropical. Tropical. North Brazil, Guianas. X = 10.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Caryophylliflorae (? — reassigned on the basis of rbcL sequencing, Chase et al. 1993); near Caryophyllales (?). Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Rosales. APG (1998) Eudicot; core Eudicot; neither Rosid nor Asterid; Caryophyllales. Species 4. Genera 1; only genus, Rhabdodendron.
This description is offered for casual browsing only. We strongly advise against extracting comparative information from it. This is much more easily achieved using the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting specified attributes, summaries of attributes within groups of taxa, geographical distribution, genera included in each family, classifications (Dahlgren; Dahlgren, Clifford, and Yeo; Cronquist; APG), and notes on the APG classification.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 10th April 2008. http://delta-intkey.com’.