14. Ceriscoides (Bentham & J. D. Hooker) Tirvengadum, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat., sér. 3, Bot. 35: 13. 1978.
木瓜榄属 mu gua lan shu
Authors: Tao Chen & Charlotte M. Taylor
Gardenia sect. Ceriscoides Bentham & J. D. Hooker, Gen. Pl. 2: 90. 1873.
Shrubs or small trees, dioecious [or polygamo-dioecious], often with short shoots, unarmed or with spines or spinescent short shoots. Raphides absent. Leaves opposite but usually crowded on short shoots and apparently fasciculate, sometimes with domatia; stipules caducous, interpetiolar, triangular. Inflorescences terminal on lateral branches or short shoots [sometimes cauliflorous], sessile to pedunculate, bracteate, staminate 2-flowered or 2- or 3-flowered and cymose, pistillate 1-flowered. Flowers sessile to pedicellate, unisexual [sometimes bisexual and monomorphic]. Calyx with ovary portion hemispherical to ellipsoid in pistillate flowers, markedly turbinate with base narrowed in staminate flowers; limb subtruncate to 5(-7)-lobed. Corolla white to pale green, tubular-campanulate or funnelform, glabrous inside; lobes 5(-7), convolute in bud. Stamens 5(-7), inserted in corolla throat, included, staminodes markedly reduced; filaments short; anthers dorsifixed. Ovary 1-celled, ovules numerous in each cell on 2-4[-6] parietal placentas; stigmas 2[-6]-lobed, included. Fruit brown, baccate, fleshy, globose to ellipsoid, smooth, with calyx limb persistent; seeds numerous, large, ellipsoid to lenticular, embedded in fleshy pulp.
About 11 species: China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; one species (endemic) in China.
Ceriscoides was recently studied by Azmi (Harvard Pap. Bot. 7(2): 443-464. 2003). H. S. Lo (in FRPS 71(1): 337. 1999) described the placentas as 2-4 and the stigmas of our species as 2, but Azmi (loc. cit.: 445) described both of these as 3-6.
