Description:

• Herbs, shrubs, or small (rarely large) trees, sometimes scrambling, very often glabrous and often somewhat succulent
• Leaves alternate, simple, entire, with crystals generally visible in young stage, usually petiolate; stipules 0
• Inflorescences terminal or axillary, most frequently racemose or cymose; bracts and paired bracteoles small
• Flowers small, bisexual (unisexual in a few species of Phytolacca; plants then usually dioecious), mostly regular (± weakly irregular in Hilleria), hypogynous
• Perianth simple
• Tepals 4 or 5, free (slightly connate in Hilleria), imbricate, inconspicuous to petaloid, mostly greenish to whitish, less often yellow or reddish, usually persistent
• Stamens (3)4-many, in 1-several whorls, when definite then alternating with tepals, usually produced from a ± fleshy disc; filaments free or connate at base; anthers dorsifixed, tetrasporangiate, mostly ± linear, incised at base, often also at tip, dehiscing introrsely lengthwise
• Ovary superior or half-inferior, of 1-17 free or united carpels, arranged in 1 whorl; ovule 1 per carpel, campylotropous, bitegmic, crassinucellate, basal or nearly so in single carpels, or axile in syncarpous ovaries; styles 1 per carpel, short, free or connate at base or 0; stigmas free, linear or capitate
• Fruit various, fleshy or dry
• Seed subglobose, discoidal or reniform, with a membranous or brittle testa, occasionally arillate; perisperm copious to lacking in mature seed; embryo curved

Classification Notes:

• Hutchinson (1959, 1973) segregated Hilleria, Rivina and Lophiocarpus from Phytolaccaceae and included them in the Petiveriaceae

Nomenclature:

• Phytolaccaceae
  • Brown: 454 (1818)
  • Moquin-Tandon: 2 (1849)
  • Hooker: 78 (1880)
  • Heimerl: 1 (1889)
  • Walter: (1909)
  • Heimerl: 135 (1934)
  • Nowicke: 294 (1968)
  • Brown & Varadarajan: 49 (1985)
  • Stannard: 163 (1988)
  • Rohwer: 506 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 17, species ± 70; predominantly neotropical, some in Old World, a few in temperate regions
• Southern Africa: Genera 4 (1 exotic), species 10

References:

• BROWN, G.K. & VARADARAJAN, G.S. 1985. Studies in CARYOPHYLLALES 1: Re-evaluation of classification of Phytolaccaceae s.l. Systematic Botany 10
• BROWN, R. 1818. Phytolacceae. In J.H.Tuckey, Narrative of an expedition to explore the river Zaire. John Murray, London
• HEIMERL, A. 1889. Phytolaccaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,1b
• HEIMERL, A. 1934. Phytolaccaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edn 2,16c
• HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Phytolaccaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• MOQUIN-TANDON, C.H.B.A. 1849. Phytolaccaceae. In A.P. de Candolle, Prodromus 13,2. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
• NOWICKE, J.W. 1968. Palynotaxonomic study of the Phytolaccaceae. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 55, 3
• ROHWER, J.G. 1993. Phytolaccaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• STANNARD, B.L. 1988. Phytolaccaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,1
• WALTER, H. 1909. Phytolaccaceae. Das Pflanzenreich 4, 83 (Heft 39)

Resources:

• Classification of Phytolaccaceae
• Key to Phytolaccaceae genera

• Phytolaccaceae genera: