Family Phellinaceae

Phellinaceae (Loes.) Takht.

Alternatively Phellineaceae~ Aquifoliaceae

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; non-laticiferous and without coloured juice. Leaves evergreen; (pseudo-) whorled, or alternate (more or less crowded towards the branch tips); leathery; simple. Lamina entire. Leaves exstipulate.

Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. ‘Included’ phloem absent. Xylem with tracheids. Wood parenchyma scanty paratracheal.

Reproductive type, pollination. Plants dioecious. Female flowers with staminodes. Gynoecium of male flowers pistillodial.

Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in racemes, or in panicles. Inflorescences axillary; racemes or panicles or mixed panicles. Flowers regular; 4–6 merous; cyclic. Free hypanthium absent.

Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 8, or 10, or 12; 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx 4–6 (small); 1 whorled; gamosepalous (more or less connate at the base), or polysepalous (?); regular; open in bud. Corolla 4–6; 1 whorled; polypetalous (the petals with a small, inflexed apiculus); valvate; fleshy.

Androecium 4–6. Androecial members free of the perianth; all equal; free of one another; 1 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 4–6; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; tetrasporangiate. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate (colporoidate).

Gynoecium 2–5 carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth to isomerous with the perianth. The pistil 2–5 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious, or eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary 2–5 locular; sessile. Gynoecium more or less non-stylate (the stigma sessile). Stigmas 1 (lobed). Placentation axile to apical. Ovules 1 per locule; pendulous; slightly campylotropous, or hemianatropous.

Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe. The drupes with separable pyrenes (as many stones as locules). Fruit 2–5 seeded. Seeds copiously endospermic.

Geography, cytology. Paleotropical. Tropical. New Caledonia.

Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Tenuinucelli (?). Dahlgren’s Superorder Corniflorae, or Asteriflorae (according to rbcL sequencing); Asterales; formerly Cornales. Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Celastrales. APG 3 core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Asteranae; campanulid; Order Asterales.

Species 12. Genera 1; only genus, Phelline.