Home
Mostly dioecious or polygamous trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, thin to coriaceous, glabrous or hairy. Flowers small, hermaphrodite or unisexual in axillary or subterminal panicles. Perianth with or without a tube; lobes 6 or 8, equal, usually deciduous. Hermaphrodite flowers: stamens in 3 or 4 whorls, the outer 3 fertile the inner if present reduced to slender staminodes; anthers 4-thecous, introrse in two outer whorls, ± extrorse in third whorl; filaments very short or lacking, those of third whorl with a sessile or very rarely stipitate gland at each side at base. Ovary ovoid, ellipsoid or subglobose, longer or shorter than the style, usually glabrous. Male flowers: similar but ovary sterile, stalk-like or lacking. Female flowers: as in hermaphrodite flowers but stamens rudimentary, barren. Fruits ellipsoid or globose, seated to enclosed in an enlarged cupular receptacle which is truncate or 6-toothed or 6-lobed from the persistent perianth-lobes.
Hermaphrodite flowers: fertile stamens 9 in 3 whorls adnate to the tepals, those of the third whorl with lateral glandular appendages at the base, filaments short; staminodes 3 in a fourth (innermost) whorl situated on the receptacle; ovary ovoid, usually glabrous.
Leaves alternate, rarely sub-opposite, simple, pinnately-nerved, sometimes also 3-nerved near the base, membranous to coriaceous, glabrous or pubescent.
Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual; receptacle broadly obconic, enlarging in fruit to form a truncate or 6-lobed cupule.
Fruit drupaceous, partially enveloped by the accrescent receptacle and acorn-like in appearance in some species.
Inflorescence of cymules arranged in axillary or subterminal panicles.
Female flowers: as in hermaphrodite flowers but stamens rudimentary.
Male flowers: similar but ovary sterile, stalk-like or lacking.
Tepals 6, subequal, usually spreading.
Evergreen trees or shrubs.
