Description:

• Trees, evergreen, glabrous, often aromatic
• Leaves alternate, simple, entire, gland-dotted, penninerved, dark green, shiny above; stipules 0
• Inflorescence axillary with flowers solitary or in abbreviated 3-flowered cymes
• Flowers regular, bisexual
• Sepals 3, imbricate, persistent, suborbicular
• Petals 10, free, in 2 whorls, the outer larger and thicker than inner, pellucid gland-dotted
• Stamens 10, hypogynous; filaments united in a tube; anthers sessile on upper part of tube, about as long as tube, linear, with fleshy apical appendage and with longitudinal extrorse dehiscence
• Ovary superior, 1-locular; ovules 10-30 in 1 or 2 rows on 5 parietal placentas; style ± enclosed in staminal tube, truncate at apex, bearing 5 oval stigmatic patches round the sides, thick; stigmas 2-5
• Fruit a berry; pericarp coriaceous
• Seeds 2-many, shining; endosperm oily and fleshy

Nomenclature:

• Canellaceae
  • Codd: 39 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 5, species ± 11 , tropical North and South America, east tropical Africa and Madagascar
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 1

References:

• CODD, L.E. 1976. Canellaceae. Flora of southern Africa 22

Resources:

• Canellaceae genus: Warburgia