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Family:

Myrtaceae (Magnoliophyta)

Accepted Name:

This name is currently accepted.

Description:

Author: Maria Lúcia Kawasaki

Description: Trees and shrubs. Bark smooth or breaking into fissures. Stipules absent. Leaves simple, opposite, entire, characteristically pellucid-punctate. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, paniculate, dichasial, or racemose, these often appearing fasciculate or glomerate by reduction of the main axis, or flowers solitary. Flowers bibracteolate, actinomorphic, bisexual; hypanthium sometimes prolonged above ovary apex; calyx lobes usually 4 or 5, free or fused; petals 4 or 5, free, usually white; stamens numerous, the filaments usually free, whitish, the anthers with terminal gland, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; ovary inferior, 2-5-locular, the style filiform, the stigma punctiform or capitate; placentation axile, the ovules 2-many per locule. Fruits berries, crowned by the calyx lobes or remnants. Seeds 1-many, usually reniform, the seed coat membranous to bony; embryo with cotyledons membranous, folded and radicle elongate (myrcioid), or with cotyledons fleshy and radicle short or indistinct (eugenioid), or with very small cotyledons and the radicle elongate, curved or spiral (myrtoid).

Diversity and distribution: Ca. 100 genera and ca. 3500 species in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world; six genera and nine species in Saba, one introduced from southeastern Asia (Syzygium jambos (L.) Alston).

Classification: The Myrtaceae are traditionally placed in the Myrtales, a position supported by the APG classification.

Taxonomic notes: This family description was prepared for the Plants and Lichens of Saba project. The Myrtaceae are characterized by opposite leaves with pellucid punctations that can be seen when they are held against the sky, lack of stipules, a citrus-like aroma released when the leaves are crushed, numerous stamens, and inferior ovaries.The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group places the Myrtaceae in the core eudicots in an unresolved polytomy at the base of the rosids I.

Flora and Monograph Treatment(s):

Myrtaceae: [Book] Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.