Tropicos | Name - Symphonia L. f.

Symphonia L. f.

Flora Data (Last Modified On 10/17/2013)

Genus	Symphonia L. f.
PlaceOfPublication	Suppl. 302. 1781.
Note	TYPE: S. globulifera L. f.
Description	Trees or shrubs; sap yellowish, glabrate. Leaves opposite, mostly apically acuminate (Panama) or sometimes rounded, pinnately nerved; stipules wanting. Inflorescences few-flowered cymes or solitary flowers, often condensed, terminal or axillary. Flowers perfect, red or pink; sepals 5, imbricate, the outer 2 smaller; petals 5, contorted, arranged in a globose bud; disc extrastaminal, cupulate; fil- aments forming a column apically separating into 5 parts opposite the petals, each staminal element bearing 2-5 anthers, the anthers linear, dehiscent by lateral slits; ovary 5-locular, the ovules 2-8 per carpel, ascending, the style elongate, peg-like, apically 5-lobed, the stigmas minute, porate. Fruit pink or red, baccate, globose or ovoid few seeded, lacking endosperm, the embryo thick, entire and lacking cotyledons.
Habit	Trees or shrubs
Note	Symphonia, the only genus in tribe Moronobeae occurring in Panama, is dis- tinct in its perfect flowers, contorted sepals, connate androecium, and globose red or pink flowers and fruits. The genus is represented in the New World tropics, Africa and Madagascar by S. globulifera, and in Madagascar more than a dozen endemic species have been recorded, some of which may be valid. The sap is used for caulking and the timber for construction.