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Stamens 4–5; pet often long-persistent; ovary conic; placentas basal or nearly so; styles 3–4, short-clavate or obovate; fr conic, separating completely into 3 or 4 valves; deciduous shrubs or trees with small, scale-like, often imbricate lvs and numerous small fls in racemes or spikes borne on the old wood or aggregated into a terminal panicle. 50, Old World. Two spp. occasionally escape from cult. in our range, but are scarcely members of our established flora. T. parviflora DC. has 4-merous fls, with the filaments seated on the 4 lobes of the disk. T. chinensis Lour. has 5-merous fls, with the filaments arising from (or just outside) the sinuses of the 5-lobed disk (the disk lobes often emarginate). (T. ramosissima; T. pentandra, an illegitimate name)
Shrubs or small trees. Lvs scale-like or ericoid, sheathing, with sunken salt-secreting glands. Fls pink or white, either borne in axillary spike-like racemes on the previous season's shoots or in terminal panicles on the current season's growth, sometimes on both. Sepals and petals 4-5. Stamens 4-15, sometimes partly antipetalous. Disc fleshy, nectar-secreting, 4-5-lobed. Styles 3-4, short. Seed with apical tuft of hairs.
Flowers in narrow racemes or spikes. Petals without ligules. Stamens free or shortly connate at the base; anthers extrorse. Ovary narrowed towards the apex; placentas basal; styles short and thick; stigmas flattened or somewhat concave. Seeds with a sessile apical tuft of hairs; endosperm absent.
Shrubs or trees. Leaves usually sessile, sessile or amplexicaul in T. tetragyna, or sheathing in T. aphylla. antisepalous, sometimes also antipetalous in T. tetragyna; ovary pear-shaped; styles 3(or 4), short. Seeds beaked. x = 12.
Inflorescence of dense racemes. Flowers 4-or 5-merous. Stamens free, as many as the petals or twice as many. Ovary usually of 3 carpels. Seeds with a coma of long hairs at the upper end.
Seeds with a crest of long hairs at the apex.
Stamens free or connate at the very base
Anthers extrorse
