SHAHINA A. GHAZANFAR
National Herbarium, Agricultural Research Council,
Islamabad. (Now at Newnham College, Cambridge.)
Trees or shrubs, mostly dioecious, seldom hermaphrodite. Leaves simple, usually alternate, exstipulate. Flowers axillary, 3-7-merous, bracteate, solitary or in few flowered cymes; unisexual or rarely bisexual. Calyx persistent, accrescent in fruit. Corolla lobed, deciduous. Male flowers with epipetalous stamens, 2-4-times the corolla lobes; filaments free or united at the base. Female flowers with staminodes, 8 or none. Ovary 4-12-locular, superior; styles free or basally united. Fruit a berry.
A tropical family of c. 6 genera and 500 species in the tropics and sub-tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere and N. America. Represented in Pakistan by a single genus.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the United States Department of Agriculture for financing this research under PL-480. Thanks are also due to Mr. I.C. Hedge of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh for his helpful suggestions.