Chloranthus Sw.

Shrubs or perennial erect or straggling herbs, glabrous and aromatic; stems jointed at the nodes. Leaves decussate, or sometimes subverticillate in whorls of 4, serrate; petiole bases connected by a transverse line or shortly connate; stipules mostly small. Spikes terminal, slender, sometimes branched, sometimes leafy at the base, the flowers each in the axil of persistent mostly subopposite bracts along the spicate opposite side branches. Flowers essentially bisexual, the male part usually a 3-lobed organ adnate to the ovary and sometimes enveloping it forming a fleshy mass, the lobes ('connectives') short and broad or longer or distinctly narrow and elongate, in some species almost or quite free, or in one species not noticeably lobed and reduced to ± nothing but 1-3 anthers; anthers 1-3, the introrse locelli variously arranged, either 3 'anthers', one median with 2 approximate, or ± separated locelli and one on each lateral edge with single locelli, or 2 lateral 1-locellate anthers and usually no median one (but this can vary in a population), or 1-3 anthers joined and the lobed organ practically or quite obsolete with one 2-locellate anther and usually two lateral 1-locellate anthers. Ovary naked; stigma subsessile, truncate. Drupes usually white, fleshy. Seeds subglobose, minutely apiculate, narrowed below, invested by the thin fibrous endocarp, the seed-coat with a lignified endotestal palisade.