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This pantropical family is most diverse in the rainforests and monsoon forests of south-east Asia and north-eastern Australia. Some species may be found almost anywhere in Australia, though with only a few genera (e.g. Dodonaea, Atalaya) in desert regions and only Dodonaea extending into the temperate south.
Characteristic features of the family Sapindaceae in Australia include: - trees or shrubs (rarely climbers), with usually alternate, compound (sometimes simple) leaves often with an even number of leaflets (i.e. without a terminal leaflet, but with the leaf terminating in a short process or "pin"), the leaflets usually alternating with each other on the rhachis
- flowers small, greenish, cream or yellow, with 5 sepals, 5 free petals and a prominent nectary-disc
- stamens usually 10 (sometimes fewer), often rather irregularly arranged, often with hairy filaments
- ovary superior, often distinctly lobed or with bulges marking the carpels
- fruits usually dehiscent into 3 or 4 valves, often yellowish or red and, when split, gaping to reveal the few large, often sticky seeds that may have brightly coloured, fleshy arils and contrastingly-coloured seed bodies; some genera with winged, dry fruits or indehiscent drupes
Description
Evergreen trees or shrubs, or rarely woody or perennial herbaceous
vines climbing by tendrils. Tendrils (if present) axillary, comprising
modified inflorescences. Perennating by taproots or crowns. Internal secretions
not obvious. Plants glabrous, or with simple or stellate, glandular or
non-glandular, unicellular hairs. Leaves alternate and spiral, or rarely
in whorls or pseudo-whorls, cauline if herbs, petiolate, subsessile or
sessile; pulvinae present or absent. Stipules absent, or present and distinct
and free from the petiole, scale-like, membranous, or green and leafy,
persistent; stipellae absent. Lamina simple, once compound or bicompound,
bifoliolate, ternate, palmate, paripinnate or imparipinnate, symmetric
or conspicuously asymmetric, pinnatifid or pinnatisect; lamina/leaflets
filiform, acicular, subulate, linear, lanceolate, ovate, elliptic, oblanceolate,
oblong or flabellate; base cuneate, attenuate, oblique or rarely cordate;
margins entire, crenate, dentate or serrate, ±flat, revolute or
recurved; venation pinnate, with the midrib conspicuous, and the tertiary
venation reticulate or obscure; surfaces punctate or not punctate; leathery
or rarely herbaceous. Domatia absent, or consisting of pits, pockets or
hair tufts in the vein angles. All the flowers bisexual, or bisexual flowers
occurring together with male flowers on the same plant, or male and female
flowers occurring on the same plant, or bisexual flowers occurring together
with male flowers on some plants and with female flowers on others. Inflorescences
terminal or axillary, consisting of racemes, panicles, cymes, corymbs,
thyrses or solitary flowers. Bracts and bracteoles present or apparently
absent. Pollination by insects or wind. Flowers odourless or fragrant,
stalked. Floral disc present (sometimes obscure). Perianth regular (rarely
zygomorphic), of 2 dissimilar whorls or of 1 whorl only. Calyx segments
free or fused, with 4–10 sepals or lobes, imbricate, rarely valvate or
open in bud; calyx cup-shaped, herbaceous or rarely petal-like. Corolla
segments free or fused, with (0–) 4–6 petals or lobes, alternating with
the sepals or lobes, imbricate in bud; corolla 1-lipped, white, cream,
pink or green, without contrasting markings, membranous or papery; claws
present; lobes ±entire or notched, emarginate, bifid or bilobed.
Fertile stamens (5–) 8–10 (–16), not clearly correlated with the sepals
or calyx lobes, free of (or rarely fused with) the corolla, free of the
ovary and style, distinct from each other or rarely fused into a tube,
all ±equal. Staminodes present or absent. Anthers basifixed or
dorsifixed, versatile or not, opening sideways or inwards by longitudinal
slits, 2-celled; appendages apical or absent. Ovary superior and sessile.
Carpels 1–3, fused; ovary with 1–3 locules. Style terminal, single and
unbranched with the stigma linear or lobed. Ovules 1–2 per locule,
stalked; placentation axile. Fruit a dry dehiscent, schizocarpic or indehiscent
capsule with irregular, septicidal or loculicidal dehiscence, or a schizocarp
forming 1-winged mericarps (samarium), or rarely a fleshy berry; the perianth
on the maturing fruit deciduous, or dry and persistent. Disseminule macro-surface
featureless, winged or costate; micro-surface ±smooth, brown, glossy
or dull. Seeds 1–6 per fruit. Aril present or absent. Cotyledons
2. Embryo straight or curved.
(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 Sapindaceae has been published in:
Flora of Australia 25: 41-64.
Australian genera of Sapindaceae (as recognised for the Flora of Australia)
* = all species introduced
Alectryon Allophylus Arytera Atalaya *Cardiospermum Castanospora Cossinia Cupaniopsis Dictyoneura Dimocarpus Diploglottis Diplopeltis Distichostemon Dodonaea Elattostachys Ganophyllum Guioa Harpullia Jagera Lepiderema Lepidopetalum Lepisanthes Mischocarpus Rhysotoechia Sarcopteryx Sarcotoechia Synima Toechima Tristiropsis
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Alectryon coriaceus (fruits)
Photo: H.Nicholson © H. & N. Nicholson
Arytera lautereriana (fruits)
Photo: G.Leiper © G.Leiper
Arytera microphylla (flowers)
Photo: G.Leiper © G.Leiper
Atalaya multiflora (flowers)
Photo: G.Leiper © G.Leiper
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