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(Last Modified On 5/8/2013)
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(Last Modified On 5/8/2013)
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Family
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RHAMNACEAE
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Contributor
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JOAN W. NOWICKE
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Description
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Trees, shrubs, or woody vines, rarely herbs, deciduous or evergreen, armed with spines or unarmed. Leaves alternate or opposite, simple, pinnately-nerved or 3-nerved from the base, petiolate and usually stipulate, the stipules mostly minute and deciduous, sometimes modified to spines. Inflorescences umbelloid or corymboid cymes and axillary, or sometimes reduced to a single flower, or racemose or spicate thyrses and axillary or terminal. Flowers small, actino- morphic, bisexual or polygamous; floral tube obconic to campanulate, generally persistent in fruit; calyx-lobes 4-5(-6-8); petals 4-5(-8), mostly cucullate and often clawed; stamens 4-5(-6-8), opposite the petals and often enfolded by them, functional or smaller and sterile in carpellate flowers, the anthers 2-locular, longitudinally dehiscent; nectariferous disc intrastaminal, annular or lobed, rarely absent; ovary perigynous to epigynous, 2-3(-4)-carpellate, syn- carpous, functional or rudimentary in staminate flowers, the ovules 2-3(-4), the style 1 or 2-3-parted, the stigmas (1-)2-3(-4). Fruit a drupe with 2-3(-4) pyrenes or rarely a winged (or unwinged) schizocarp; seeds 2-3(-4), smooth and convex on the abaxial side.
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Habit
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Trees, shrubs, or woody vines, rarely herbs
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Distribution
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A family of 50-60 genera and 550-900 species with an almost cosmopolitan distribution. Six genera are found in Panama.
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Key
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a. Plants climbing by tendrils; fruit a 3-winged schizocarp -6. Gouania aa. Plants erect shrubs or small trees; fruit a fleshy or leathery drupe, some- times 3-lobed but not winged. b. Leaves opposite .......4. Rhamnidium bb. Leaves alternate. c. Stipules small spines; leaves 3-nerved almost to the apex ..... 5. Ziziphus cc. Stipules generally not spinose; leaves mostly penninerved. d. Fruits fleshy, ovoid, subtended basally by a more or less flat remnant of the floral tube; inflorescences few-flowered .....1. Rhamnus dd. Fruits dry, 3-lobed, adnate basally to a cup-like floral tube; in- florescences few- to Many-flowered. e. Leaves densely tomentose beneath; inflorescences race- mose, many-flowered; fruit distinctly 3-lobed, crested on the ridges ..... 2. Ceanothus ee. Leaves generally glabrous, or if pubescent, not densely tomentose; inflorescences few-flowered axillary thyrses; fruit subspherical ..... 3. Colubrina
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