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(Last Modified On 5/9/2013)
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(Last Modified On 5/9/2013)
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Family
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SIMAROUBACEAE
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Contributor
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DUNCAN M. PORTER
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Description
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Trees or shrubs, rarely suffrutescent, all parts often bitter to the taste. Leaves usually alternate, pinnately-compound, simple, or rarely rudimentary, never punctate-glandular, the margins usually entire; stipules usually absent. Inflores- cences terminal and/or axillary or rarely cauliflorous, usually many-flowered, panicles or racemes, the flowers rarely solitary; plants monoecious or dioecious. Flowers small or large, regular, hypogynous, 3-5 (-8) -merous, bisexual or uni- sexual by abortion; sepals 3-8, free or connate, imbricate or valvate, deciduous or persistent; petals 3-8, rarely absent, free, imbricate or valvate; stamens as many or twice as many as the petals, rarely more numerous, absent or reduced to staminodes in carpellate flowers, the filaments free, sometimes appendaged basally, usually inserted at the base of the disc, the anthers 2-4-thecate at anthesis, versatile or basifixed, introrse, longitudinally dehiscent; disc usually present, intrastaminal; gynoecium 2-5 (-8) -carpelled, apocarpous or syncarpous, inserted on or encircled by the disc, sessile or on a gynophore, rudimentary or absent in staminate flowers, the ovaries 1-carpelled and -loculed in apocarpous flowers, 2-4-carpelled and -loculed in syncarpous flowers, the ovules 1-2 per locule, rarely more, anatropous or rarely orthotropous to campylotropous, epitropous to rarely apotropous, pendulous, placentation axile, the styles apical, lateral, or basal, free or partially to completely coherent or connate, the stigmas simple. Fruits apo- carpous and of 2-8 1-carpelled and -loculed drupes, berries, or samaras, or syn- carpous and of 2-4-carpelled and 1-4-loculed berries, drupes, samaroid capsules, or schizocarps; seeds 1 per locule, the testa membranaceous or coriaceous, the endosperm absent or scanty, the embryo large and straight or rarely curved, the cotyledons narrowv, mostly fleshy, plano-convex or flat, the radicle usually short.
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Habit
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Trees or shrubs
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Distribution
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A family of about 30 genera and 200 species, mainly tropical except for a few species in warm-temperate eastern Asia and western North America. Four genera are known to occur in Panama.
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Note
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The bitter vegetative parts of many species are used medicinally.
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Reference
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Cronquist, A. Studies in the Simaroubaceae-IV. Resume of the American genera. Brittonia 5: 128-147. 1944. Brizicky, G. K. The genera of Simaroubaceae and Burseraceae in the South- eastern United States. Jour. Arnold Arbor. 43: 173-186. 1962.
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Key
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a. Leaf petiole and rachis broadly and conspicuously winged -1. Quassia aa. Leaf petiole and rachis not winged. b. Leaflets 20-36, opposite to the lower most pairs subopposite, tipped with a con- spicuous apical gland ......... 2. Simaba bb.Leaflets 3-20, alternate to the lowermost pairs subopposite or opposite, not tipped with a conspicuous apical gland. c. Inflorescences widely-branching panicles; stamens or staminodes 10; drupes 1-3 per flower, 1-seeded ......... 3. Simarouba cc. Inflorescences simple spike-like racemes, rarely once-branched basally; stamens or staminodes 3-5, or absent; berries 1 per flower, 1-3-seeded ...... 4. Picramnia
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