Description:

• Trees or shrubs, often maritime (mangroves)
• Leaves opposite, rarely whorled, simple, usually entire, sometimes crenate or serrulate, petiolate; stipules interpetiolar, falling early but leaving a thin scar
• Flowers bisexual, regular, in cymes, or rarely solitary or capitate; bracts sometimes present
• Calyx 4-15-lobed, lobes usually valvate; tube ± adnate to ovary, persistent
• Petals free, as many as calyx lobes and often shorter than they, sessile or clawed, sometimes enveloping stamens, emarginate, 2-fid, or lobed at apex
• Stamens 2-4 times as many as petals, rarely equal in number, epipetalous or arising from calyx tube, variously placed in relation to disc; filaments shorter to longer than petals; anthers 4-locular and dehiscing longitudinally or (in Rhizophora) multithecous and dehiscing by a ventral valve
• Ovary usually inferior, rarely superior, (1)2-6-locular; ovules 2 per locule, with axile placentation; style simple; stigma simple or lobed
• Fruit either a leathery 1-seeded berry (mangroves) or a septicidal 2-4-locular capsule, with 1 seed per locule (Cassipourea), crowned with persistent calyx; locule 1-seeded by abortion
• Seeds pendulous, either germinating on the tree (mangroves) or arillate (Cassipourea)

Nomenclature:

• Rhizophoraceae
  • Sonder: 513 (1862) as Rhizophoreae
  • Torre & Gonçalves: 81 (1978)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 16, species ± 120; fairly cosmopolitan in tropical and subtropical parts of Africa, Asia and America, often of mangrove habitat
• Southern Africa: Genera 4, species 8

References:

• SONDER, O.W. 1862. Rhizophoreae. Flora capensis 2
• TORRE, A.R. & GONÇALVES, A.E. 1978. Rhizophoraceae. Flora zambesiaca 4

Resources:

• Key to Rhizophoraceae genera

• Rhizophoraceae genera: