Aptandra

  • Authority

    Sleumer, Hermann O. 1984. Olacaceae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 38: 1-159. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Olacaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Aptandra

  • Type

    Type species. A. tubicina (Poeppig) Bentham (A. spruceana Miers).

  • Description

    Genus Description - Glabrous shrubs or trees. Leaves alternate, entire, penninerved, micropunctate against strong light, the laticifers narrow, hardly or not visible beneath with a naked eye, petiolate. Flowers bisexual (sect. Aptandra), small, odoriferous, slenderly pedicellate, collected into axillary pedunculate slender lax- to many-flowered panicles, sometimes with small scaly and caducous prophylls on lower part of peduncle. Calyx patelliform, deeply 4-dentate or -lobed, small in anthesis but very much enlarged towards fructification. Petals 4, alternating with the calyx lobes, valvate, thin-fleshy, linear-ligulate, coherent in bud into a cylindrical tube which is globular-widened distally, distinct, convolute and revolute at full anthesis, caducous. Disk-glands 4, distinct, petaloid, alternating with the petals, inserted on the flower axis between the petals and the staminal tube, thickish, rounded. Stamens 4, the filaments connate to a cylindrical distally thickened tube which includes ovary and style; anthers oblong, concrescent to an annulus with the thickish connectives, each anther opening from apex to base by a membranaceous finally reflexed valve. Ovary substipitate, 2-sulcate, 2-celled below, with 2 anatropous (unitegmic or ategmic?) ovules pendent from the apex of the columnar basal placenta; style slender, clavate-thickened distally, as long as the staminal tube; stigma obtuse, small. A single drupe developed at end of inflorescence, 1-seeded, rather large, included in its lower half by the much enlarged fruit-calyx, the latter cup-shaped, rather thin, its upper part erect or spreading, i.e. frill-like expanded; pericarp coriaceous; endocarp lignescent; endosperm fleshy, containing amylum and fatty substances, with a small embryo at its apex; cotyledons orbicular, foliaceous.

  • Distribution

    The genus comprises two closely related species in Amazonian S America and A. zenkeri Engler in tropical W Africa. The latter represents a second section, Aptandrina Engler, differing in having dioecious flowers and, according to Feuer (1977), also in several key pollen characters.

    South America| Africa|