Trees or shrubs, generally with milky latex and 2-armed hairs (1 arm often reduced or 0)
Leaves
alternately or spirally arranged, simple, entire, petiolate, often leathery; stipules present or 0, usually falling early
Flowers
regular, usually bisexual or sometimes female by reduction of stamens, solitary or in axillary clusters or on bare branches or stems, white or cream, scented, often bat-pollinated
Calyx
with sepals ± free, either in 1 whorl with (4)5(6), or in 2 whorls with 3 or 4 sepals each
Corolla
with a short cylindric to campanulate tube with 1 or 2 whorls of 2-5 entire, lobed to divided petals
Stamens
as many as corolla lobes and opposite them or more numerous and in 2 whorls, arising on corolla; filaments often shorter than anthers; anthers with longitudinal slits; staminodes sometimes present
Ovary
superior, 5-many locules, with 1 ascending ovule per locule; placentation basal or axile-basal; style simple, conical or cylindric; stigma usually indistinct, acute to capitellate
Fruit
a 1-many-locular berry
Seeds
often solitary and large with hard, usually shiny testa
Nomenclature:
Sapotaceae
Jussieu: 151 (1789)
Meeuse: 31 (1963)
Hemsley: 472 (1966)
Kupicha: 210 (1983)
Pennington: 117 (1991)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Genera 50-100, difficult to define, species ± 1000, pantropical, mostly in humid forest, but some genera (e.g.
Sideroxylon
) extending into semi-arid and arid regions
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
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