Families of Flowering Plants of Australia

Melianthaceae

All species of this small family are native to southern Africa; 2 species of Melianthus are grown in gardens in Australia and occasionally escape cultivation in the southern States.

Characteristic features of the family Melianthaceae in Australia include:

soft-wooded shrubs with large, foetid, pinnately or irregularly lobed leaves with large, membranous stipules joined to the base of the petiole
flowers strongly zygomorphic, pouched, red, in terminal or axillary racemes with large bracts
stamens 4, 2 long and 2 shorter
ovary superior, developing into an inflated, winged capsule

Description

Evergreen, suckering shrubs. Internal secretions not obvious. Plants glabrous, or with stellate, non-glandular, unicellular or uniseriate hairs. Leaves alternate and spiral, petiolate. Stipules intrapetiolar, green and leafy or bristle-like, persistent; stipellae absent. Lamina once compound, imparipinnate, symmetric; leaflets lanceolate, ovate, elliptic or oblong; base cuneate, rounded or oblique; margins serrate, ±flat; venation pinnate, with the midrib conspicuous, and the tertiary venation not reticulate; surfaces not punctate; herbaceous; distinctive odour foetid. All the flowers bisexual. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, consisting of racemes. Bracts present. Pollination by insects or birds. Flowers stalked. Floral disc present; nectaries present on the disc. Perianth irregular, of 2 dissimilar whorls, imbricate in bud. Calyx segments free or fused, with 4–5 sepals or lobes, herbaceous, base saccate. Corolla segments free, with 4–5 petals, alternating with the sepals or calyx lobes; corolla 1-lipped, red, grey, brown or black, without contrasting markings, membranous; claws present; lobes ±entire. Fertile stamens 4, opposite to the sepals or calyx lobes, free of the corolla, free of ovary and style, distinct from each other, in 2 unequal pairs. Anthers basifixed, not versatile, opening inwards by longitudinal slits, 2-celled. Ovary superior and sessile. Carpels 4–5, fused; ovary with 4 locules. Style terminal, single and unbranched with the stigma in a style cleft. Ovules 2–4 per locule, sessile; placentation axile. Fruit a dry dehiscent loculicidal capsule; the perianth on the maturing fruit persistent. Disseminule micro-surface ±smooth, black, glossy. Seeds 4–8 per fruit. Aril absent. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight.
(Note: this description has been generated from the coded data compiled for the key. Any errors in the key data will be reflected in the descriptions.)

A treatment of the family Melianthaceae has been published in:
Flora of Australia 25: 1-2.

Australian genera of Melianthaceae (as recognised for the Flora of Australia)

* = all species introduced

*Melianthus