(Last Modified On 3/7/2013)
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(Last Modified On 3/7/2013)
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Genus
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ELACHYPTERA A. C. Smith
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PlaceOfPublication
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Brittonia 3: 383. 1940.
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Description
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Lianas or slender trees with scandent branches, glabrous throughout or nearly so, the branches terete. Leaves opposite or subopposite, petiolate, stipulate. Inflores- cences axillary or terminal, many-flowered, paniculate-corymbose, copiously branched, the peduncle and branchlets quadrangular. Flowers hermaphrodite, very small, pedicellate; sepals 5, usually broader than long, rounded at the apex; petals 5, imbricate, suberect, entire to erosulous at the margins, thin-carnose; disc continu- ous, erect, inconspicuous, short-cylindric, often thickened at the margin, carnose or thin-carnose; stamens 3, suberect, the filaments ligulate, the anthers extrorsely nutant, transversely ellipsoid, dehiscing by apical, transversal clefts; pollen grains simple; ovary 3-lobed, 3-celled, each cell 2- or 4- ovulate, the ovules collateral or in superposed pairs, ascending from the inner basal angle; style short, the stigma capitate or 3-lobed, the lobes inconspicuous and opposite the stamens. Fruits of 3 capsular mericarps (2 mericarps often abortive), these divergent, separately attached to a slightly swollen receptacle, short-stipitate, nearly flattened or slightly convex on both surfaces, dehiscing along an inconspicuous median suture, the pericarp papyraceous or thin-coriaceous; seeds 1-4 per mericarp, affixed by a very short basal wing, the wing papyraceous or thin-coriaceous, extended distally into a flange (sometimes greatly expanded) along the inner margin of the embryoniferous por- tion; cotyledons united.
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Habit
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Lianas trees
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Distribution
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A genus of tropical America and tropical Africa, consisting of five species; three species are recognized in tropical America, one of which occurs in Panama.
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