Ericaceae
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Authority
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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Family
Ericaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Family Description - Fls regular or somewhat irregular, hypogynous to sometimes epigynous, mostly perfect and 4–5-merous; cor gamopetalous or much less often polypetalous, the lobes convolute or imbricate; stamens free from the cor or attached to its very base, as many or more often twice as many as the pet, rarely intermediate in number; anthers becoming inverted during ontogeny, so that the morphological base is apical, opening by pores at the apparent apex, or by more or less elongate slits extending downward from the apex, or rarely opening longitudinally their whole length, the apparent tip often drawn out into a pair of slender (sometimes connate) tubules (awns), and the body sometimes with 2 or 4 evident, slender appendages (spurs); pollen generally in tetrahedral tetrads; ovary superior to sometimes inferior, mostly 4–5-locular (8- or 10-locellar in Gaylussacia and some Vaccinium); placentation axile; ovules usually several or numerous in each locule (1 per locule in Arctostaphylos, 1 per locellus in Gaylussacia); fr capsular, often with a persistent axis, or sometimes a berry or drupe; seeds (5) ± numerous, sometimes winged, with copious endosperm and a straight (often very short) dicotyledonous embryo; seed-coat a single layer of cells; shrubs, small trees, or lianas, seldom almost herbaceous, with simple, exstipulate lvs (these often small and firm, with revolute margins, and then said to be ericoid, but also often quite ordinary) and small (often urceolate) to large fls typically in bracteate racemes or corymbs, but sometimes solitary and terminal or axillary. Genera 1–7 belong to the tribe Rhododendreae, 8–18 to the Andromedeae, 19 to the Arbuteae, 20 and 21 to the Ericeae, and 22 and 23 to the Vaccinieae. 125/3500.