Juglandaceae
-
Authority
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
-
Family
Juglandaceae
-
Scientific Name
-
Description
Family Description - Fls tiny, unisexual, borne in unisexual (seldom bisexual) catkins, the bracts, bractlets, and tepals variously connate and adnate and subject to diverse morphological interpretations; staminate catkins commonly (including our genera) elongate, drooping, borne on the twigs of the previous year, or at the base of the current year’s growth; staminate fls solitary in the axils of the bracts of the catkin, each with usually 4 tepals adnate to the 2 bractlets, with which they form a common structure, or the tepals (or both tepals and bractlets) obsolete; stamens 2–many; filaments short; pistillate fls mostly in short, few-fld catkins terminating the twigs of the season, or solitary and terminal, each fl subtended by a variously developed set of ± connate bracteoles and a single primary bract, these collectively often forming a minute, perianth-like involucre; ovary inferior, with 1–4 calyx-teeth toward the summit (or the calyx-teeth obsolete, as in Carya), mostly bilocular (or 4-locular by the intrusion of "false" partitions) below, unilocular above, the partition not reaching the top of the cavity; styles 2, distinct or basally connate, often with plumose stigma; ovule solitary, erect, orthotropous, borne at the summit of the partition; fr a rather large, sometimes samaroid nut, or ± drupe-like, the softer, fibrous husk (representing the ripened involucre) sometimes splitting to release the hard nut; embryo large, dicotyledonous; endosperm none; aromatic, anemophilous trees or shrubs with mostly alternate, pinnately compound, exstipulate lvs (ours deciduous) that are provided with small, resinous, peltate, basally embedded gland- scales. 7–8/60.
-
Common Names
The walnut family