Family Flindersiaceae

Flindersiaceae (Engl.) C.T. White & Airy Shaw

~ Meliaceae, Rutaceae

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs; bearing essential oils. Mesophytic. Leaves alternate, or opposite; petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted; aromatic; compound; pinnate, or ternate, or unifoliolate; exstipulate. Lamina margins of the leaflets entire. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem.

Leaf anatomy. Mucilaginous epidermis often present.

Lamina with secretory cavities. Secretory cavities containing oil.

Stem anatomy. Secretory cavities present; with oil. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Vessels without vestured pits.

Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite.

Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in panicles. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary. Flowers small; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; pentacyclic. Hypogynous disk present; annular (the disk large, cupular, crenate, enclosing the ovary).

Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 whorled; polysepalous, or gamosepalous; regular; imbricate, or valvate. Corolla 5; 1 whorled; polypetalous (the petals sometimes adaxially hairy); imbricate; regular.

Androecium 10. Androecial members free of the perianth (sometimes ‘adnate to the disk’); 2 whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens, or including staminodes. Staminodes when present, 5; internal to the fertile stamens (the members of the inner androecial whorl). Stamens 5, or 10; isomerous with the perianth, or diplostemonous; oppositisepalous; both alternating with and opposite the corolla members. Anthers dorsifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; sometimes with a produced connective. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate.

Gynoecium 3 carpelled, or 5 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled, or 5 celled. Gynoecium apocarpous to syncarpous; semicarpous, or synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary 3 locular, or 5 locular. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1; 5 lobed; peltate. Placentation axile. Ovules 2–8 per locule (biseriate); with ventral raphe; non-arillate; anatropous, or hemianatropous (?).

Fruit non-fleshy; not an aggregate, or an aggregate to not an aggregate; dehiscent; a capsule (woody). Capsules septicidal, or loculicidal. Seeds non-endospermic; compressed; winged. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo curved.

Physiology, biochemistry. Cyanogenic. Proanthocyanidins present. Saponins/sapogenins present, or absent. Aluminium accumulation possibly demonstrated.

Geography, cytology. Sub-tropical to tropical. South India and Ceylon, East Malaysia, Eastern Australia, New Caledonia.

Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Rutiflorae; Rutales. Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Sapindales. APG 3 core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Rosanae; malvid; Order Sapindales (as a synonym of Rutaceae).

Species 17. Genera 2; Flindersia, Chloroxylon.