Tropicos | Name - Sorocea A. St.-Hil.

Sorocea A. St.-Hil.

Flora Data (Last Modified On 1/17/2013)

Genus	SOROCEA A. St.-Hil.
Contributor	WILLIAM C. BURGER
PlaceOfPublication	Mem. Mus. Paris 7:473. 1821.
Synonym	Pseudosorocea Baill. in Adansonia 11:296. 1875. Balanostreblus Kurz, emend. Hutchinson, in Kew Bull. 1918:152. 1918.
Description	Dioecious trees, the branches unarmed. Leaves alternate, distichous; stipules lateral. Both staminate and pistillate inflorescences racemes and spikes; the small, congested or relatively distant flowers interspersed with small, shortly stipitate, peltate bracts. Staminate flowers: tepals 4, united or essentially free to the base, imbricate in bud, without an obvious pistillode; stamens 4, the filaments about as long as the tepals and scarcely inflexed before anthesis, the anthers broadly oval, extrorse. Pistillate flowers hypogynous to perigynous: tepals 4, completely united or minutely 4-lobed; ovary superior to inferior, the style central and deeply bifid. Fruit a small 1-seeded drupe.
Habit	trees
Distribution	About a dozen species ranging from Costa Rica to Argentina.
Key	a. Leaves glabrous beneath, narrowly elliptic to elliptic-obovate, rarely over 20 cm. long, on narrow petioles 0.5-1.5 mm. thick; staminate flowers usually pedicellate ......................................................... 1. S. AFFINIS aa. Leaves generally short-pilose on the veins beneath, broadly elliptic to elliptic-oblong, to 30 cm. long, on petioles 1.5-2.5 mm. thick; stami- nate flowers sessile ......................................................... 2. S. PUBIVENA