WorldFloraDB - Ancistrocladaceae

Characteristics

Lianas or scandent shrubs climbing by hooked apices of sympodial branches; juvenile growth erect, shrubby, monopodial; plants externally glabrous. Leaves alternate; juvenile leaves crowded in terminal rosettes; adult leaves distributed along stems and clustered terminally on branches; stipules absent or tiny and caducous; petiole absent, though leaves often appearing pseudopetiolate due to long attenuate base of blade; leaf blade simple, entire, both surfaces with sparsely to moderately distributed small pits, each pit containing a single trichome that secretes a waxy substance. Flowers small, bisexual, in extra-axillary or apparently terminal dichotomously branched panicles with higher order branches sometimes becoming racemiform or spiciform, regular except for often unequal sepals. Bracts tiny, subtending axes and pedicels. Sepals (4 or)5, seated on middle or upper part of ovary, imbricate, equal or unequal, accrescent and winglike in fruit. Petals (4 or)5, distinct or slightly connate at base, imbricate, convolute, and/or intermediate in bud. Stamens 10, in 1 or 2 whorls, equal or 5 somewhat larger than others, or seldom 8 or only 5; filaments equal or unequal in length, somewhat connate at base and adnate to base of petals; anthers basifixed, tetrasporangiate and dithecal, introrse, opening by longitudinal slits. Gynoecium of 3 carpels united to form a compound, 1-loculed ovary; ovary inferior or partially inferior; ovule solitary, basilateral, hemitropous, bitegmic; styles 1 or usually 3, thickened, oblong; stigmas 3. Fruit a nut surrounded by corky hypanthium and crowned by often unequal sepals. Seed with hard, starchy, ruminate endosperm; embryo short, straight.

More

Lianas or scandent shrubs; branches sympodial, provided with a series of circinate woody hooks in one plane. Leaves alternate, entire, simple, glabrous, coriaceous, some generally larger scattered on the main shoots, others often smaller crowded in rosettes on flowering shoots, all cuneiform, penninerved, reticulately veined, minutely pitted on both surfaces, each pit with a peltate small hair secreting a wax-like substance; petiole articulated, often leaving a saddle-shaped scar on the twigs. Stipules small, very caducous. Inflorescences axillary or pseudo-terminal, dichotomously branched or spike-like, sometimes provided with hooks; pedicels articulated. Flowers hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, 5-merous, very caducous. Calyx-tube short, adnate to the base of the ovary; sepals imbricate, ± unequal, soon accrescent. Petals free, contorted or imbricate. Stamens mostly 10, rarely 5 or to 15, perigynous, in 1–2 cycles, alternately unequal; filaments short, ± united at the base, with broadened base; anthers basifixed, generally introrse, 2-thecous, opening lengthwise. Ovary for the greater part inferior, tricarpellate, 1-locular, protruding into an enlarging nipple-shaped elongation bearing 3 articulated erect free or united styles with 3 stigmas; ovule 1, basal, hemianatropous, with 2 integuments. Fruit a non-dehiscent dry nut, 1-seeded, crowned by the generally unequal and wing-like enlarged sepals. Seeds with a thin testa intruding between the cerebral-like folds of the endosperm

Calyx-tube at first short, at length adnate to the base of the ovary, with imbricate lobes; tube adnate to the fruit, with spreading wing-like unequal lobes

Flowers hermaphrodite, actmomorphic, small, soon falling off, in terminal panicles, the branches of which are recurved

Leaves alternate, simple, entire, leathery; indumentum absent; stipules inconspicuous or caducous

Stamens perigynous, 5 or 10; anther-cells slightly unequal, with a shortly produced connective

Fruit turbinate, surrounded by the wing-like calyx-lobes, with a leathery indehiscent pericarp

Seed subglobose; testa intruding between the folds of the embryo; cotyledons strikingly folded

Ovary 1-celled; ovule solitary; style thick and fleshy, with 3 stigmas

Petals 5, unequal, contorted, slightly connate at the base

Scandent shrubs with hook-like branchlets

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Cultivation

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