Eupomatiaceae Endl.
Habit and leaf form. Trees and shrubs; bearing essential oils; leptocaul. Mesophytic. Leaves alternate; distichous; petiolate; non-sheathing; gland-dotted, or not gland-dotted; aromatic, or without marked odour; simple; epulvinate. Lamina entire; pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins entire. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem.
Leaf anatomy. Stomata present; mainly confined to one surface (abaxial); paracytic.
Lamina weakly dorsiventral; without secretory cavities. The mesophyll with spherical etherial oil cells, or without etherial oil cells (?). Minor leaf veins without phloem transfer cells (1 genus).
Stem anatomy. Nodes penta-lacunar, or multilacunar (with five or more traces). Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Xylem with fibre tracheids. Vessel end-walls oblique; scalariform. Wood parenchyma apotracheal and paratracheal. Sieve-tube plastids P-type; type I (b).
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous; via beetles.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers solitary (usually), or aggregated in inflorescences (sometimes 23 together); bracteate. Bracts calyptrate (each flower covered initially by one calyptrate bract, which falls entire). Flowers medium-sized; calyptrate; acyclic. The androecium acyclic and the gynoecium acyclic.
Perianth absent.
Androecium 25100 (i.e. many). Androecial members maturing centripetally; free of one another; spiralled. Androecium including staminodes. Staminodes 1550 (many); internal to the fertile stamens (the inner members being sterile); petaloid. Stamens about 515 (the few outer members); laminar to petaloid (the outer, fertile members narrow). Anthers basifixed, or adnate; non-versatile; dehiscing by longitudinal valves; extrorse (the thecae abaxial); appendaged (with a prolonged connective). Microsporogenesis simultaneous. The initial microspore tetrads tetrahedral, or isobilateral, or decussate, or linear (occasionally). Pollen grains aperturate; 2 aperturate, or 3 aperturate; sulculate, or zoniaperturate.
Gynoecium 1368 carpelled; apocarpous; eu-apocarpous to semicarpous (carpels spiralled); partly inferior (sunken in the top-shaped receptacle). Carpel incompletely closed; 211 ovuled. Placentation marginal (ventral). Ovules non-arillate; anatropous; bitegmic.
Fruit fleshy; an aggregate. The fruiting carpels coalescing into a secondary syncarp (and sunken). The fruiting carpel indehiscent. Fruit enclosed in the fleshy receptacle. Seeds endospermic. Endosperm ruminate; oily. Embryo well differentiated (very small).
Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.
Physiology, biochemistry. Not cyanogenic. Alkaloids absent (2 species). Iridoids not detected. Proanthocyanidins present; cyanidin. Flavonols absent. Ellagic acid absent.
Geography, cytology. Temperate to tropical. New Guinea and coastal Eastern Australia. 2n = 20.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgrens Superorder Magnoliiflorae; Annonales. Cronquists Subclass Magnoliidae; Magnoliales. APG (1998) basal order; Magnoliales. Species 2. Genera 1; only genus, Eupomatia.
Cite this publication as: ‘L. Watson and M. J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The Families of Flowering Plants: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. Version: 14th December 2000. http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/’. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993, 1995, 2000), and Watson and Dallwitz (1991) should also be cited (see References).