Trees or shrubs; dioecious, rarely monoecious; occasionally with watery latex
Leaves
alternate, shortly petiolate, often 3-nerved from base, frequently glandular between nerves on lower surface at base; stipellate
Inflorescence
of male flowers in axillary or lateral, simple or branched spikes, several to a bract and with female flowers in axillary spikes or racemes, solitary to a bract
Petals
0
Disc
usually 0
Male flowers
: calyx splitting into 2-5 valvate lobes; stamens 8 or rarely fewer; filaments free or nearly so; pistil 0
Female flowers
: calyx 3-6-lobed, with lobes imbricate; ovary (1)2- or 3(4)-locular, with a single ovule in each locule; styles free, usually entire
Fruit
a 2- or 3(4)-coccous capsule, with cocci bivalved, leaving persistent columella; endocarp crustaceous
Global
: Species ± 50, cosmopolitan in tropics; 6 African
Southern Africa
: Species 2, Northern Province, Mpumalanga to N KwaZulu-Natal
References:
PAX, F. & HOFFMANN, K. 1914.
Euphorbiaceae
-
Acalypheae
-
Mercurialinae
.
Das Pflanzenreich
147,6 (Heft 63)
PRAIN, D. 1920.
Euphorbiaceae
[in part].
Flora capensis
5, 2
RADCLIFFE-SMITH, A. 1987.
Euphorbiaceae
.
Flora of tropical East Africa
.
Euphorbiaceae
Part 1
RADCLIFFE-SMITH, A. 1996.
Euphorbiaceae
.
Flora zambesiaca
9, 4
SWARTZ, O.P. 1788.
Nova genera & species plantarum seu Prodromus
. Sweder, Stockholm
WEBSTER, G.L. 1994. Synopsis of the genera and suprageneric taxa of
Euphorbiaceae
.
Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden
81
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