Description:

• Trees (mangroves)
• Leaves alternate, simple, bunched at ends of branches, sometimes with large glands on margin, glabrous; stipules small
• Flowers bisexual, regular, ± showy, in racemes
• Calyx 2-4-lobed, leathery; tube obconical, ± quadrangular; lobes valvate or slightly imbricate, unequal, elliptic
• Petals 4, adnate to staminal tube, free
• Stamens very many, in several series; filaments united at base; anthers 2-thecous, usually basifixed, opening by longitudinal slits
• Ovary inferior or semi-inferior, 2-4-locular, with 2-many axile ovules in each locule; style simple, longer than stamens; stigma truncate
• Fruit fleshy, becoming spongy, crowned with persistent calyx, 1-seeded
• x = 13 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Lecythidaceae
  • Sonder: 523 (1862)
  • Sangai: 1 (1971)
  • Fernandes: 216 (1978)
  • Tsou: 1 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 20, species 280, a pantropical family segregated into 4 or 5 subfamilies; Barringtonia is in subfamily Planchonioideae
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 1

References:

• FERNANDES, A. 1978. Barringtonia J.R. & G.Forst. Flora zambesiaca 4
• SANGAI, G.R.W. 1971. Flora of tropical East Africa. Lecythidaceae
• SONDER, O.W. 1862. Barringtonia (under Myrtaceae). Flora capensis 2
• TSOU, CHIH-HUA 1994. The embryology, reproductive morphology, and systematics of Lecythidaceae. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden 71

Resources:

• Lecythidaceae genus: Barringtonia