Smith, Albert C. & Wodehouse, R. P. 1938. The American species of Myristicaceae. Brittonia. 2: 393-527. f. 1-9.
Myristicaceae
Description - Dioecious shrubs or small trees, the branchlets subterete, glabrous; leaves glabrous, alternate, petiolate, the blades entire or slightly undulate and often narrowly recurved at margins, the costa raised above, prominent beneath, the secondary nerves several, irregularly anastomosing near margins, the tertiary nerves subparallel, nearly perpendicular to the costa, often conspicuous; inflorescences 1 or 2 in leaf axils or on defoliated branchlets, racemose, fasciculate- racemose, or narrowly paniculate; bracts subtending the fascicles or lateral branches small or none bracteoles none; flowers pedicellatel staminate perianth carnose or thin carnose, sometimes puberulent within , 3(rarely or 5) lobed; filaments connate in a carnose eolnmn; anthers 4-10, oblong, 2-celled, dehiscing by extrorse clefts, in the Section Eucompsoneura basifixed and free (rarely partially dorsally connate by inconspicuous connectives), often recurved, in the Section Coniostele dorsally adnate to a carnose truncate-obconical colnective mass, the anther cells separately adnate and often divergent; pistillate perianth usually slightly larger and more carnose than the staminate, the ovary subglobose or ellipsoid, the style short, the stigma peltate or 2-lobed; fruit ellipsoid, glabrous, 2-valved, smooth or obseurely carinate, pedicellate, the pedicel surmounted by the persistent perianth lobes, the pericarp very thin, the aril essentially entire or minutely laciniate at apex with a few short lobes, the seed ellipsoid, the testa conspicuously irregularly splotched with black or purple.
The genus falls into two very well marked sections of four species each on the basis of anther arrangement. Warburg designated these sections as Eucompsoneura and Coniostele. The advisability of raising the latter to generic rank has been considered. The androecium of this group is very different from that of Eucornpsoneura. In other genera, such as Virola, Iryanthera, and Dialyanthera, the anthers may be either dorsally connate or partially or completely free. In the Section Coniostele, however, the anthers are adnate to a remarkable obconical mass formed by the firmly connate swollen connectives. This appears a character of generic significance, but it is noted that in C. Ulei the connective mass is deeply concave at the apex, indicating a transition between the two sections of Compsoneura. In fruiting characters and in vegetative features the two sections cannot be distinguished. The conspicuous subparallel tertiary nerves of the leaves readily identify Compsoneura and indicate that the androecium differences of the two sections are less than generic. In view of these similarities, Warburg's conclu- sions are here supported.