Description:

• Deciduous trees, small to medium-sized, with branches leafy at apex, with aromatic oils and cystoliths in leaves and stems; plants monoecious or polygamous
• Leaves alternate, simple, almost circular, entire or 3-5-lobate, with 3-5 major veins arising at or near base, whitish tomentose beneath, with long petioles; stipules 0
• Inflorescences dichasial, ebracteate, in axils of upper leaves
• Flowers bisexual or unisexual, mostly male, ± regular, epigynous, many, hairy, very small
• Perianth of 4-8 ± free tepals, equal or unequal, 2 larger than the rest and accrescent in bisexual flowers, linear or oblong-spatulate, in a single whorl, imbricate, obtuse
• Stamens usually 4 or 5, in a single whorl, much exserted, arising at base of perianth; filaments with dorsal appendages; anthers 2-thecous, broadly oblong, dehiscing laterally by 2 flap-like valves opening upwards
• Staminodes as many as and alternating with stamens, or more numerous, ± clavate, ± glandular, partly connate, or with a single peltate staminode opposite style
• Ovary inferior, 1-locular; ovule solitary, pendulous, anatropous, bitegmic and crassinucellar; style straight; stigma sessile, obliquely expanded
• Fruit a bony nut, ovoid, apically provided with 2 terminal large spatulate wings formed by accrescent perianth segments
• Seed broadly oblong, without endosperm; embryo straight
• x = 15 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Hernandiaceae
  • Blume: 550 (1825) as Hernandieae
  • Dumortier: 14 (1829) as Gyrocarpeae
  • Meisner: 247 (1864) as Lauraceae tribus Gyrocarpeae
  • Pax: 126 (1889) as Hernandiaceae
  • Kubitzki: 78 (1969)
  • Kubitzki: 334 (1993)
  • Stannard: 59 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 5, species ± 60, mainly in lowland tropics of both the Old and New World, America, Africa and Asia, often coastal
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 1

References:

• BLUME, C.L. 1825. Hernandieae. Bijdragen tot de flora van Nederlandsch lndië 2. Lands Drukkerij, Batavia
• DUMORTIER, B.C.J. 1829. Gyrocarpeae. Analyse des familles des plantes. Casterman, Tournay
• KUBITZKI, K. 1969. Monographie der Hernandiaceen. Botanische Jahrbücher 89
• KUBITZKI, K. 1993. Hernandiaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - Dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• MEISNER, C.F. 1864. Lauraceae tribus Gyrocarpeae. In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 15. Masson & Sons, Paris
• PAX, F. 1889. Hernandiaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,2
• STANNARD, B.L. 1997. Hernandiaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,2

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