Sideroxylon

• Authority

  Pennington, Terence D. 1990. Sapotaceae. Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 52: 1-750. (Published by NYBG Press)

• Family

  Sapotaceae

• Scientific Name

  Sideroxylon

• Type

  Type species. Sideroxylon inerme Linnaeus (lectotype).

• Synonyms

  Bumelia, Spondogona, Dipholis, Sideroxylon foetidissimum Jacq., Mastichodendron, Apterygia, Sideroxylon inerme Krauss ex A.DC., Spondogona nitida Raf., Bumelia pentagona Sw., Dipholis salicifolia (L.) A.DC., Achras salicifolia L., Bumelia picardae Urb., Dipholis anomala Urb., Mastichodendron foetidissimum (Jacq.) Cronquist, Sideroxylon foetidissimum Jacq., Apterygia sartorum (Mart.) Baehni, Bumelia sartorum Mart.

• Description

  Genus Description - Spinous or unarmed trees or shrubs. Stipules absent. Leaves spirally arranged, or less frequently opposite, often becoming fascicled on short lateral shoots. Inflorescence axillary or in the axils of fallen leaves. Flowers solitary or fasciculate, inflorescence sessile or very rarely pedunculate, flowers usually bisexual, rarely unisexual (dioecious ?). Calyx a single whorl of 5(-8) quincuncial free sepals. Corolla cyathiform, usually glabrous; tube nearly always shorter than the lobes, rarely equalling or slightly exceeding them; lobes (4-)5(-6), imbricate or quincuncial, spreading, entire or divided into a larger median segment and two smaller lateral segments. Stamens (4-) 5(-6), in a single whorl fixed at the top of the corolla tube, exserted; filaments well developed; anthers extrorse, usually glabrous; stamens sometimes converted into sterile staminodes in male flowers. Staminodes (4-)5(-6), usually well-developed, alternating with the stamens, often lanceolate, erose, infolded and incurved against the style, usually glabrous, rarely hairy. Ovary (1-)5(-8)-locular, hairy or glabrous; placentation basi-ventral or basal; style exserted or included. Fruit 1(-2)-seeded, fleshy, usually glabrous. Seed globose, ovoid, oblong or ellipsoid, not laterally compressed; testa smooth, shining, free from the pericarp, often thick and woody, often sculptured on the adaxial surface with several prominent thickened plates; scar nearly always basal or basi-ventral, small, circular, lanceolate or elliptic, rarely adaxial and then broad; embryo vertical, oblique or horizontal, with thin foliaceous cotyledons, and copious endosperm, or with planoconvex cotyledons and then with a thin sheath of endosperm, or endosperm absent; radicle exserted. Pollen (Figs. 160, 161, 162) (number of specimens examined: 25; number of spp.: 22). Grains sub-prolate or prolate. 3, 3 & 4 or 4 & 5-col-porate. Average polar length 23.7-39.4 µm (rarely to 61.5 µm). Colpi short or long, rarely very reduced. Endoapertures broadly (rarely narrowly) lalongate. Tectum occasionally protrudent. Endexine thin under mesocolpial tectum, noticeably thicker around apertures. Surface of tectum smooth or indistinctly patterned, finely or coarsely rugulate or striate. In a few species patterning of apocolpia and mesocolpia differentiated.