酸豆属 suan dou shu

Authors: Dezhao Chen, Prof. Dianxiang Zhang & Kai Larsen

Trees. Leaves abruptly pinnate, alternate; stipules caducous, small; leaflets 10 to numerous paired. Racemes or racemes arranged in panicles at ends of shoots; bracts and bracteoles often caducous, colored, ovate-oblong. Calyx tube narrowly turbinate; segments 4, imbricate. Petals: only upper 3 developed, subequal in length, lower 2 reduced, scalelike, concealed at base of staminal tube. Perfect stamens 3, connate into an ascending, curved tube or sheath from middle downward; filaments short; anthers dorsifixed; staminodes few, minute, at apex of sheath. Ovary stalked, stalk adnate to calyx tube; ovules numerous; style elongated; stigma capitate. Legume narrowly terete, indehiscent; epicarp thin, crustaceous; mesocarp thick and pulpy; endocarp membranous, septate between seeds. Seeds compressed, obliquely oblong or obliquely ovoid-orbicular; cotyledons thick, fleshy; embryo erect.

One species: native to Africa, widely introduced and cultivated in the tropics including China.

Lower Taxon

• Tamarindus indica Linnaeus