Averrhoaceae
Y. NASIR
Stewart Herbarium, Gordon College, Rawalpindi.
Trees, shrubs or climbers. Leaves alternate, imparipinnate, exstipulate; leaflets entire, alternate to subopposite. Flowers small, regular, bisexual, in axillary racemes or panicles. Sepals 5, free. Petals 5, free or united, con¬torted. Stamens 10, obdiplostemonous; sometimes only 5 fertile; filaments shortly connate at the base; anthers introrse, with longitudinal dehiscence. Disc absent. Pistil syncarpous; ovary 5-locular, 5-lobed; styles 5, free; stigma capitate; placentation axile with numerous ovules. Fruit fleshy, 5-lobed, indehiscent or loculicidal. Seeds several, exarillate or arillate; endosperm scanty.
A small tropical family of 3 genera and 16 species; found mainly in W. Malaysia, Madagascar, Burma and S. America; widely cultivated.
The family is sometimes included in the Oxalidaceae, from which it differs in its arboreal habit, the fruit which is a berry and the scanty endosperm.
Acknowledgement: We are grateful to the United States Department of Agriculture for financing this research under P. L. 480.
