5. Flueggea Willdenow, Sp. Pl. 4: 637, 757. 1805.
白饭树属 bai fan shu shu
Authors: Bingtao Li & Michael G. Gilbert
Geblera Fischer & C. A. Meyer.
Erect shrubs or small trees, dioecious, rarely monoecious; branchlets sometimes spine-tipped, indumentum of simple hairs, often absent. Leaves alternate, often distichous; petiole short; leaf blade simple, margin entire or serrulate, venation pinnate. Inflorescences axillary, 1-flowered, fascicled, or cymose; bracts obscure. Male flowers: pedicels long and slender; sepals 4-7, imbricate, margins entire or serrulate; petals absent; disk of 4-7 segments, these sometimes connivent or fused; stamens 4-7, inserted at base of disk, longer than sepals; filaments free; anthers 2-locular, erect, extrorse, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode small, 2- or 3-lobed. Female flowers: pedicels terete or angular; sepals as in male; disk saucer-shaped or patelliform, sometimes thickened, entire or lobed; ovary (2 or)3(or 4)-locular; ovules 2 per locule; styles free, spreading, apex bifid or entire. Fruit a capsule, globose or trigonous, dehiscent into 3 cocci or indehiscent and ± berrylike; columella and sepals persistent; locules usually 2-seeded. Seeds usually 3-angled; testa thin, crustaceous, smooth to reticulate or verruculose, sometimes adaxially invaginated at hilum; endosperm copious; embryo straight to distinctly curved, lacking chlorophyll; cotyledons broader and much longer than radical.
About 13 species: widespread in tropical to warm temperate regions; four species (one endemic) in China.
