12. Catunaregam Wolf, Gen. Pl. 75. 1776.
山石榴属 shan shi liu shu
Authors: Tao Chen & Charlotte M. Taylor
Xeromphis Rafinesque.
Shrubs or small trees, often with short shoots, often armed with spines or spinescent short shoots. Raphides absent. Leaves opposite or often clustered and apparently fasciculate on short shoots, subsessile to petiolate, usually with domatia; stipules deciduous or caducous, interpetiolar, triangular. Inflorescences terminal on short shorts or these sometimes reduced giving an appearance of axillary position, 1-flowered, or cymose to fasciculate and 2-6-flowered, sessile to pedunculate, bracteate or bracts reduced. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate, bisexual, monomorphic. Calyx limb deeply 5-lobed, lobes spatulate to obovoid. Corolla white to cream or pale green, campanulate to subrotate, usually densely sericeous outside, variously pubescent inside; lobes 5[-10], convolute in bud. Stamens 5, inserted in corolla throat, partially to fully exserted; filaments short; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary 2-celled, ovules many in each cell on axile placentas attached at center of septum; stigma ellipsoid or 2-lobed, exserted. Fruit generally yellowish brown, baccate, leathery to thickly fleshy or infrequently hard, globose, ellipsoid, or ovoid-globose, with calyx limb persistent; seeds numerous, medium-sized, ellipsoid, angled, or reniform, embedded in fleshy or mucilaginous pulp.
About five to perhaps ten species: widespread in Africa, also in Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Laos, Madagascar, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; one species in China.
The calyx limb enlarges markedly during the development of the fruit. At least some species of Catunaregam in Africa have nocturnal sweetly fragrant flowers (Bridson & Verdcourt, Fl. Trop. E. Africa, Rub. (Pt. 2), 496-500. 1988), and Catunaregam in China may also. Many species of related genera also have secondary pollen presentation, and these features may be present in Catunaregam also.
