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Synonyms: Polygonanthaceae Croizat
Common name: Anisophyllea Family.
Number of genera 4. Number of species 29.
Angiosperm. Magnoliopsida.
Disseminule an intact or entire fruit.
Fruits
Pistil(s) 1; 1-pistillate. Fruit pericarpium; simple; carcerulus; without persistent central column; not within accessory organ(s); 1-seeded and more than 1 but less than 10-seeded (1–4); 1–4-seeded; from 1–5 cm long; 1.5–2 cm long; 3–4-carpellate; with carpels united; with carpels remaining united at maturity; with carpels remaining connected at style; without sterile carpels; apex not beaked; wall leathery, or hard, or woody; indehiscent. Epicarp durable; without armature; with wing(s), or without wing(s); 2–4-winged (at least); with wing(s) lateral; without apical respiratory hole. Funiculus short; short without seed bearing hooks (retinacula); not persisting in fruit after seed shed.
Seeds
Aril absent. Seed larger than minute; 5 to less than 10 mm long to 10 to less than 25 mm long; 9.5–22.5 mm long; obovate, or elliptic, or fusiform; not bowl shaped; not nutlike; without winglike beak; without caudate appendage(s); at maturity with food reserves, or without food reserves (Tobe & Raven (1987)), or without apparent food reserves; with endosperm; without canavanine. Sarcotesta absent. Testa present; without fleshy or leathery layer over hard layer; without glands; without bristles; without wings; without collar; without operculum; colored; monochrome; brown (all shades) (dark); thick; not becoming mucilaginous when wetted; surrounding embryo. Hilum larger than punctate. Endosperm development nuclear.
Embryo differentiated from food reserve; well developed; 1 per seed; nearly filling testa (trace or scanty food reserve), or completely filling testa (no food reserve); at one end of seed not extending into a depression or cup; axile and centric; without coleorhiza; without simmondsin; without stomata; not green; acotyledonous, or with 1 cotyledon (none and/or fused). Hypocotyl-radicle vestigial (assumed based on cotyledons); not thickened.
Distribution
Old World and New World. Middle America (few spp.), southeastern Asia (Indomalaysia).
Notes
Does carcerulus of Spjut cover all fruit types in this family? We do not know. Cronquist: Fruit woody or coriaceous to drupaceous. Goldberg included Anisophyllea in Rhizophoraceae, and noted that its fruits were dry and rather hard-shelled. [Does this indicate berrylike or drupelike?].
Weed information
No USA noxious weeds.
Listed seeds
No ASOA or ISTA listed seeds.
Accepted genera
Anisophyllea R. Br. ex Sabine -- Combretocarpus Hook. f. -- Poga Pierre -- Polygonanthus Ducke
References specific to this family
Cronquist page 564. Tobe, H. & P.H. Raven. 1987. Systematic embryology of the Anisophylleaceae. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 74:1–26.
General references
Cronquist, A. 1981. An integrated system of classification of flowering plants, 1,262 p. Columbia University Press, New York, Gunn, C.R., J.H. Wiersema, C.A. Ritchie, and J.H. Kirkbride, Jr. 1992 and amendments. Families and genera of Spermatophytes recognized by the Agricultural Research Service. Techn. Bull. U.S.D.A. 1796:1–500, Mabberley, D.J. 1987. The plant-book, 706 p. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Spjut, R.W. 1994. A systematic treatment of fruit types. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 70:1–182.
Illustrations
Acceptable seed but poor fruit illustrations. Cronquist has no illustration. Disseminule illustration(s): fruit, or seed, or embryo. Fruit illustration(s): Hooker [3335]. Seed illustration(s): Karen. Embryo illustration(s): Tobe & Raven (1987), Karen (outline only). Karen's plate number and taxon (taxa): 169: Anisophyllea apetula Scortech. ex King (A-B), Combretocarpus rotuodatus Danser (C-D), Poga oleasa Pierre (E), Polygonanthus amazonicus Ducke (F-G).
• Fruit. 1 of 5. Anisophyllea apetula Scort. ex King: fruit. • Seed. 2 of 5. Anisophyllea apetula Scort. ex King: seed. • Embryo. 3 of 5. Anisophyllea apetula Scort. ex King: embryo. • Embryo. 4 of 5. Combretocarpus rotundatus (Mig.) Danser: embryo. • Embryo. 5 of 5. Polygonanthus amazonicus Ducke: embryo.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘J.H. Kirkbride, Jr., C.R. Gunn, and M.J. Dallwitz. 2000 onwards. Family guide for fruits and seeds: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 12th April 2021. delta-intkey.com’.
