Subfamily

Description

Trees, shrubs, and woody vines, frequently dioecious; leaves usually opposite (occasionally alternate or subverticillate), petiolate or sessile, simple, usually entire; cymes axillary, paniculiform to capitate (rarely reduced to solitary flowers), often merging to form a terminal thyrse; calyx actinomorphic, often coriaceous, accrescent, shallowly 4-5-lobed or truncate, sometimes torn irregularly into 2-4 deeper lobes by corolla elongation; corolla usually white to yellow or greenish (occasionally red to purple), actinomorphic, hypocrateriform or infundibular, 4-5-lobed; stamens 4-5 (usually as many as corolla-lobes), equal, usually exserted when fertile, included when sterile (i.e., in functionally pistillate flowers), filaments straight, thecae parallel, separate at dehiscence; pollen with supratectal spinules; ovary unlobed, stigma-lobes equal; disc poorly developed or absent; fruit drupaceous, oblate to globose, with one to four 1-seeded pyrenes; endosperm absent.  One hundred and sixteen species, mostly neotropical.

Distribution

Native to:

78 Southeastern U.S.A.
79 Mexico
81 Caribbean
80 Central America
82 Northern South America
83 Western South America
84 Brazil
85 Southern South America

Synonyms

Manabea Aubl., Hist. Pl. Guiane 1: 61 (1775).

Omphalococca Willd. ex Schult., Mant. 3: 10 (1827).

Amerina DC. ex Meisn., Pl. Vasc. Gen.: 278 (1840).

Brueckea Klotzsch & H.Karst. in H.Karsten, Auswahl Gew. Venez. 1: 31 (1848).

Pseudaegiphila Rusby, Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 7: 339 (1927).

Publication

Aegiphila Jacq., Observ. Bot. 2: 3 (1767); Moldenke, Brittonia 1: 245-477 (1934).

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Image resource

© Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew