Family Goupiaceae

Goupiaceae Miers

~ Celastraceae

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs. Leaves alternate; shining, leathery; petiolate (the petiole with complex and unusual vascularization); not gland-dotted; simple. Lamina entire; pinnately veined to palmately veined (subtriplinerved); (transversely) cross-venulate. Leaves stipulate. Stipules caducous (narrow and rather long). Lamina margins entire, or dentate (in seedlings).

Leaf anatomy. Stomata present; mainly confined to one surface (abaxial); anomocytic.

Lamina dorsiventral.

Stem anatomy. Cork cambium present; initially superficial. Internal phloem absent. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. ‘Included’ phloem absent. Xylem with tracheids. Vessel end-walls scalariform. Wood parenchyma apotracheal and paratracheal.

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

Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’. The ultimate inflorescence unit racemose. Inflorescences axillary; pedunculate, umbel-like clusters of very short racemes. Flowers bracteate; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present; intrastaminal; annular (sinuous cupular).

Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 whorled; gamosepalous (small); five blunt-lobed; regular; imbricate. Corolla 5; 1 whorled; polypetalous (the petals very long, linear-elongate lanceolate, concave, the upper third sharply inflexed in the bud and remaining sigmoid or geniculate at anthesis); induplicate valvate; yellow and red (red at the base).

Androecium 5. Androecial members free of the perianth; all equal; free of one another; 1 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; alternating with the corolla members; filantherous (but the filaments extremely short). Anthers adnate (the loculi short, somewhat separated); non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; having the thickened connective setose-pilose with deflexed or spreading hairs. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colpate, or colporate (col(por)oidate).

Gynoecium 5 carpelled. Carpels isomerous with the perianth. The pistil 5 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior (but partly enclosed by the disk). Ovary 5 locular (depressed-globose). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 5; free; apical (divergent, subulate); shorter than the ovary. Placentation basal to axile (at the inner angle). Ovules 7–50 per locule (several or ‘many’); ascending; bitegmic.

Fruit small, hard; indehiscent; a drupe (2–3 locular, berrylike); many seeded. Seeds endospermic. Endosperm fleshy. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight (axile). Testa slightly reticulate, pitted inside.

Geography, cytology. Neotropical. Tropical. Guiana, North Brazil.

Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Santaliflorae; Celastrales (?). Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Celastrales. APG 3 core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Rosanae; fabid; Order Malpighiales.

Species 3. Genera 1; only genus, Goupia.