乌桕属 wu jiu shu

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

Sapium sect. Triadica (Loureiro) Müller Argoviensis.

Trees or shrubs, monoecious or sometimes dioecious; indumentum absent; latex white. Leaves alternate or nearly opposite; petioles with 1 or 2 apical glands; leaf blade margin entire or serrate; venation pinnate, lowermost pair of veins originating at very leaf base, forming basal margin. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, spikelike or racemelike thyrses, sometimes branched; bracts with 2 large abaxial glands at base. Male flowers small, yellow, fascicled in axils of bracts; calyx membranous, cup-shaped, shallowly 2- or 3-lobed or -dentate; petals absent; disk absent; stamens 2-3; filaments free; anthers 2-celled, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode absent. Female flowers larger than male, 1 per bract; calyx cup-shaped, 3-partite, or cylindric and 3-dentate, rarely 2- or 3-sepaled; petals absent; disk absent; ovary 2- or 3-celled; ovules 1 per cell; styles usually 3, free or connate at base; stigma revolute, entire. Capsules globose, pyriform or 3-valved, rarely baccate, usually 3-celled, loculicidal, sometimes irregularly dehiscent. Seeds subglobose, usually covered by waxy aril; exocarp hard; endosperm fleshy; cotyledon broad and flattened.

Three species: E and S Asia; three species in China.

Lower Taxa

• Triadica cochinchinensis Loureiro
• Triadica rotundifolia (Hemsley) Esser
• Triadica sebifera (Linnaeus) Small