Guarea
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Authority
Pennington, Terence D. 1981. Meliaceae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 28: 1-359, 418-449, 459-470. (Published by NYBG Press)
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Family
Meliaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type species. Guarea trichilioides Linnaeus = Guarea guidonia (Linnaeus) Sleumer.
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Synonyms
Samyda Jacq., Guidonia, Elutheria, Plumea, Sycocarpus, Urbanoguarea, Guarea trichilioides L., Guarea guidonia (L.) Sleumer
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Description
Genus Description - Trees or treelets. Bud scales absent. Indumentum of simple hairs. Leaves nearly always pinnate with a terminal bud usually showing intermittent growth, rarely without terminal bud, very rarely unifoliolate. Leaflets sometimes glandular-punctate and -striate. Inflorescence axillary, or ramiflorous or cauliflorous, a panicle, raceme or spike. Flowers (where known) unisexual, plants dioecious. Calyx with an almost entire margin or shallowly to deeply 3-7-lobed, aestivation open. Petals (3-)4-6(-7), free, nearly always valvate, rarely slightly imbricate. Staminal tube cylindrical, sometimes contracted at throat, margin entire, crenate, or with short truncate or emarginate lobes. Anthers (7-)8-12(-14), glabrous, inserted within throat of staminal tube, completely included or partly exserted, alternate with lobes; antherodes similar, smaller, without pollen. Nectary short to long stipitate, nearly always expanded to form a collar at base of ovary. Ovary 2-10 (-14)-locular, loculi with 1-2 superposed ovules. Style-head discoid. Pistillode smaller, less swollen, with well developed non-functional ovules. Fruit a 2-10 (-14)-valved loculicidal capsule, loculi 1 or 2-seeded; pericarp leathery or woody; endocarp thin, cartilaginous. Seed often shaped like segment of an orange, with a thin fleshy sometimes vascularized sarcotesta. Embryo with thick plano-convex, superposed or rarely collateral cotyledons; radicle abaxial, extending to surface or when cotyledons collateral then radicle apical. Endosperm absent.
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Distribution
About 35 species in tropical America and five in tropical Africa.
Africa|