白树属 bai shu shu

Authors: Bingtao Li & Hans-Joachim (Hajo) Esser

Erythrocarpus Blume; Gelonium Roxburgh ex Willdenow; Owataria Matsumura.

Trees or shrubs, dioecious (very rarely monoecious); latex not evident; indumentum absent or short and simple. Leaves alternate; stipules small, connate, caducous, leaving annular scars at nodes; petiole short; leaf blade simple, entire or rarely sparsely serrulate, venation pinnate, usually pellucid-punctate. Inflorescence a leaf-opposed glomerule or cyme. Male flowers: sepals 5 or 6, free, imbricate, sometimes glandular abaxially; petals absent; disk extrastaminal or intrastaminal, annular or dissected; stamens 6-60, free; anthers longitudinally dehiscing; pistillode absent. Female flowers: sepals 4-8, imbricate, sometimes glandular abaxially; petals absent; disk annular; staminodes sometimes present; ovary (2 or)3(or 4)-locular; ovules 1 per locule; stigmas bifid (rarely multifid), spreading. Fruit a capsule or sometimes indehiscent and drupelike. Seeds not carunculate, covered by pale sarcotesta; endosperm present; cotyledon broad and flat.

About 35 species: tropical Africa, Asia, and Oceania; two species in China.

The pellucid-punctate leaf blades and small leaf-opposed inflorescences make Suregada very easy to recognize.

Lower Taxa

• Suregada aequorea (Hance) Seemann
• Suregada multiflora (Jussieu) Baillon