Description:

• Evergreen trees, shrubs or rhizomatous geoxylic suffrutices; wood with abundant silica inclusions
• Leaves alternate, simple, entire, coriaceous, lower surface with close, prominent, reticulate venation which delimits small stomatal cavities filled with hairs, sometimes with 2 glands on upper side of petiole or at junction of petiole with blade; stipules subulate or lanceolate, caducous or persistent
• Inflorescences axillary, many-flowered, complex cymes or cymose panicles; bracts and bracteoles eglandular, completely concealing flower bud
• Flowers bisexual, slightly irregular, strongly perigynous
• Calyx: tube (receptacle) turbinate and often obliquely bent or cup-shaped and ± unilaterally gibbous, hairy inside throughout; lobes 5, free, obtuse and imbricate or triangular-acute and sometimes subvalvate
• Petals 5, free, inserted in mouth of perianth tube, sessile or clawed, caducous
• Stamens 6-10 or more, sometimes unequal, inserted in throat of perianth tube, connate at base into a short ring or unilateral bundle, sometimes almost free, about as long as perianth lobes; filaments subulate-filiform, white; anthers small, dorsifixed, 2-thecous, dehiscing longitudinally and introrsely
• Ovary superior, adnate to one side of perianth tube; carpels 1, rarely 2 or 3, 2-locular, with a single, erect ovule in each locule, often villous; style arising at base of carpel(s), terete, often hairy, arcuate, included; stigma ± truncate
• Fruit drupaceous, 1-seeded, ellipsoid, obovoid or globose; epicarp verrucose; endocarp hard, thick, with a rough, fibrous surface, with 2 basal obturators
• Seed erect; endosperm 0
• x = 11 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Chrysobalanaceae
  • Brown: 433 (1818) as Chrysobalaneae
  • Candolle: 525 (1825) as Rosaceae tribus Chrysobalaneae
  • Endlicher: 1251 (1840) as Rosaceae order Chrysobalaneae
  • Hooker: 601 (1865) as Rosaceae
  • Focke: 55 (1894) as Rosaceae subfamily Chrysobalanoideae
  • Prance: 1 (1972) as Chrysobalanaceae
  • White: 265 (1976)
  • Prance & White: 1 (1988)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 17, species ± 490; restricted to the lowlands of the tropical and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, concentrated near the equator, especially in the Neotropics
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 2

References:

• BROWN, R. 1818. Chrysobalaneae. In J.H.Tuckey, Narrative of an expedition to explore the river Zaire, usually called the Congo. Appendix 5. John Murray, London
• CANDOLLE, A.-P. DE. 1825. Rosaceae tribus Chrysobalaneae. Prodromus 2. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
• ENDLICHER, S.L. 1840. Rosaceae order Chrysobalaneae. Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita 2. Beck, Vienna
• FOCKE, W.O. 1894. Rosaceae subfamily Chrysobalanoideae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,3
• HOOKER, J.D. 1865. Rosaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• PRANCE, G.T. 1972. Chrysobalanaceae. Flora Neotropica Monograph 9
• PRANCE, G.T. & WHITE, F. 1988. The genera of Chrysobalanaceae: a study in practical and theoretical taxonomy and its relevance to evolutionary biology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London B 320
• WHITE, F. 1976. The taxonomy, ecology and chorology of African Chrysobalanaceae (excluding Acioa). Bulletin du Jardin Botanique National du Belgique 46

Resources:

• Chrysobalanaceae genus: Parinari