Sideroxylon
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Authority
Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
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Family
Sapotaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Genus Description - Trees or shrubs, spinose or unarmed, producing abundant white latex. Leaves spirally arranged, rarely opposite; stipules wanting. Flowers actinomorphic, sessile or rarely pedicellate, bisexual or rarely unisexual, solitary or in axillary fascicles; calyx of a single whorl of 5(-8) free, imbricate sepals; corolla cup-shaped, glabrous, the tube shorter than, rarely equal to or longer than, the lobes, the lobes (4-)5(-6), divided into 3 segments; stamens (4-)5(-6), the filaments adnate to the top of corolla tube, the anthers basifixed; staminodes as many as corolla lobes, alternating with the stamens; ovary of (1—)5(—8) locules with axile-basal or basal placentation, the style terminal, included or exserted. Fruit a l(-2)-seeded berry; seeds globose, ovoid, oblong or ellipsoid, not laterally compressed, with a small, circular, ventral hilum scar.
Distribution and Ecology - A pantropical genus of about 70 species, 50 of which occur in the neotropics.