Family Duckeodendraceae

Duckeodendraceae Kuhlmann

~ Solanaceae

Habit and leaf form. Large trees; non-laticiferous and without coloured juice. Leaves alternate; not gland-dotted; simple. Lamina entire. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins entire.

Stem anatomy. Secretory cavities present. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring, or anomalous. Xylem with fibre tracheids. Vessel end-walls slightly oblique; simple.

Reproductive type, pollination. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite.

Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes. The ultimate inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences terminal; few-flowered, terminal or subterminal cymes. Flowers regular; 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Hypogynous disk present; intrastaminal.

Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 whorled; gamosepalous; terminally toothed. Calyx lobes markedly shorter than the tube. Calyx tubular; regular; persistent. Corolla 5; 1 whorled; gamopetalous; lobes imbricate; funnel-shaped (with a long tube, the lobes short); regular.

Androecium 5. Androecial members adnate (to the corolla); free of one another; 1 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; alternating with the corolla members; filantherous (exserted). Anthers dorsifixed to basifixed (medifixed, basally bilobed); oblong, dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse.

Gynoecium 2 carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior (more or less immersed in the disk). Ovary 2 locular (but only one locule fertile). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1–2; 2 lobed. Ovules 1 per locule; anatropous (?).

Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe (large, shining, red, the mesocarp fibrous, the bony endocarp bilocular, the fertile locule U-shaped, the sterile locule straight). The drupes with one stone. Fruit 1 seeded. Seeds scantily endospermic. Endosperm oily. Seeds U-shaped. Embryo curved (U-shaped).

Physiology, biochemistry. Inulin not found.

Geography, cytology. Neotropical. Tropical. Brazil.

Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Tenuinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Gentianiflorae; Gentianales (cf. Apocynaceae). Cronquist’s Subclass Asteridae; Solanales. APG 3 core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Asteranae; lamiid; Order Solanales (as a synonym of Solanaceae).

Species 1. Genera 1; only genus, Duckeodendron.

Record (1933). Trop. Woods 33, 6–10 (for wood structure — not yet seen).