Description:

• Evergreen or deciduous trees or shrubs, usually villous or with stellate indumentum
• Leaves subopposite, opposite or alternate, simple, usually entire but sometimes ± toothed, elliptic or lanceolate, petiolate; stipules 2, small
• Inflorescences dense, terminal or axillary heads or spikes
• Flowers bisexual or some female, ± regular, yellow, greenish or white with red base
• Calyx: tube shallow or campanulate, sometimes adnate to ovary; lobes 5(4), valvate
• Petals 5(4), free, circinate or straight in bud, ± strap-shaped, with revolute margins, often 0 in female flowers
• Stamens as many as and alternating with petals; filaments free, usually shorter than anthers; anthers 2-thecous, each theca opening with 1 valve, sometimes beaked; staminodes 0
• Ovary from inferior to almost superior, of 2 carpels, 2-locular, usually pubescent; ovule solitary in each locule, pendulous, bitegmic, anatropous; placentation axile; styles 2, subulate
• Fruit a subglobose capsule, 1- or 2-locular, 2-valved, but appearing 4-valved at apex after dehiscence, with ballistic seed ejection by bending, hard endocarp, tomentose
• Seeds ellipsoid or ovoid-oblong, hilum divided into 2 areas extending from proximal end of seed on each side; embryo large, straight
• x = 12 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Hamamelidaceae
  • Brown: 374 (1818), as Hamamelideae
  • Candolle: 267 (1830)
  • Endlicher: 803 (1839)
  • Hooker: 664 (1865)
  • Reinsch: 347 (1890)
  • Niedenzu: 115 (1891)
  • Harms: 303 (1930)
  • Endress: 371 (1989)
  • Endress: 322 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 30, species ± 100, 12 genera monotypic, scattered and relictic distribution in the temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, with greatest diversity in E Asia; only one genus in continental tropical Africa
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 3

References:

• BROWN, R. 1818. Hamamelideae. In C. Abel, Narrative of a journey in the interior of China. Longman, Hurst & Co., London
• CANDOLLE, A.-P. DE. 1830. Hamamelideae. Prodromus 4. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
• ENDLICHER, S.L. 1839. Hamamelideae. Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita 2. Beck, Vienna
• ENDRESS, P.K. 1989. A suprageneric taxonomic classification of the Hamamelidaceae. Taxon 38
• ENDRESS, P.K. 1993. Hamamelidaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• HARMS, H. 1930. Hamamelidaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edn 2, 18a
• HOOKER, J.D. 1865. Hamamelidaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• NIEDENZU, F. 1891. Hamamelidaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,2a
• REINSCH, A. 1890. Über die anatomischen Verhältnisse der Hamamelidaceae mit Rücksicht auf ihre systematische Gruppierung. Botanische Jahrbücher 11

Resources:

• Hamamelidaceae genus: Trichocladus