Description:

• Trees or shrubs, deciduous or rarely evergreen, with or without spines; plants monoecious, dioecious, polygamous or with all flowers bisexual
• Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, usually distichous, simple, often asymmetrical at base, usually 3-nerved at base, entire or serrate, crenate or dentate, petiolate; stipules paired, lateral, interpetiolar, or intrapetiolar, free or connate, usually caducous
• Inflorescences axillary, cymose, racemose, paniculate, fasciculate, or the female flowers solitary
• Flowers unisexual or bisexual, regular to slightly irregular, hypogynous or perigynous, small, inconspicuous
• Perianth 1-whorled; tube subcampanulate; lobes (2-)4-6(-9), free or connate, imbricate or valvate, persistent
• Petals 0
• Stamens as many as perianth lobes and opposite them, or rarely twice as many, or up to 16, free or adnate to perianth tube; filaments arising from perianth tube, erect in bud; anthers 2-thecous, dehiscing longitudinally, dorsifixed and often ± versatile; pistillode usually present in male flowers; staminodes present or absent in female flowers
• Ovary superior; carpels 2 or 3, connate, sessile or stipitate, 1-locular or rarely 2-locular (in Ulmus spp.), often surrounded at base by a ring of hairs; ovule solitary in each locule, pendulous from apex, anatropous or amphitropous, bitegmic, crassinucellar; styles 2, divergent, branches linear, simple or bifurcate, stigmatose on their inner face
• Fruit a drupe, samara, or nut-like, dry or thinly fleshy, often winged or appendiculate
• Seed 1, arils absent; endosperm absent or scanty, consisting of 1 layer of thick-walled cells; embryo straight or curved

Classification Notes:

• Ulmaceae Mirbel (1815) is frequently divided into two subfamilies, Ulmoideae (Ulmus) and Celtidoideae (Celtis, Chaetachme and Trema), see Melchior (1964), Chernik (1975), Cronquist (1981). They are sometimes regarded as families: Ulmaceae and Celtidaceae Link (1831), Grudzinskaya (1967)

Nomenclature:

• Ulmaceae
  • Mirbel: 905 (1815)
  • Link: (1831)
  • Planchon: 244 (1848)
  • Planchon: 151 (1873)
  • Melchior: 52 (1964)
  • Polhill: 1 (1966)
  • Chernik: 1561 (1975)
  • Wilmot-Dear: 1 (1991)
  • Todzia: 603 (1993)
  • Zavada & Kim: 13 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 16, species ± 150, tropical to temperate regions, especially north temperate zone
• Southern Africa: Genera 4 (1 exotic), species 5 indigenous, several (**±4) exotic

References:

• CHERNIK, V.V. 1975. Arrangement and reduction of perianth and androecium parts in representatives of the Ulmaceae Mirbel and Celtidaceae Link. Botanicheskii Zhurnal (Moscow & Leningrad) 60
• CRONQUIST, A. 1981. Ulmaceae. An integrated system of classification of flowering plants. Columbia University Press, New York
• GRUDZINSKAYA, I.A. 1967. The Ulmaceae and reasons for distinguishing Celtidoideae as a separate family Celtidaceae Link. Botanicheskii Zhurnal (Moscow & Leningrad) 52
• LINK, J.H.F. 1831. Ulmaceae. Handbuch zur Erkennung der nutzbarsten und am häufigsten vorkommenden Gewächse. Haude & Spener, Berlin
• MELCHIOR, H. 1964. Ulmaceae. In A. Engler's, Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien. Borntraeger, Berlin
• MIRBEL, C.F.B. DE. 1815. Ulmaceae. Eléments de physiologie végétale et de botanique 2. Magimel, Paris
• PLANCHON, J.E. 1848. Sur les Ulmacées. Annales des sciences naturelles; botanique sér. 3, 10
• PLANCHON, J.E. 1873. Ulmaceae. In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 17. Masson, Paris
• POLHILL, R.M. 1966. Flora of tropical East Africa. Ulmaceae
• TODZIA, C.A. 1993. Ulmaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• WILMOT-DEAR, C.M. 1991. Ulmaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,6
• ZAVADA, M.S. & KIM, M. 1996. Phylogenetic analysis of Ulmaceae. Plant Systematics and Evolution 200

Resources:

• Key to Ulmaceae genera

• Ulmaceae genera: