Burseraceae
SULTANUL ABEDIN and S.I. ALI
Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Karachi.
Shrubs or trees with resin or aromatic oil. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite or fascicled, usually pinnately compound or decompound, l-3 (—or more) foliolate, imparipinnate. Flowers in panicles, solitary or sometimes fascicled, bisexual or unisexual (plants then diclino or polygamodioecious), actinomorphic and hypogynous. Calyx 3-6 fid or partite forming a tube, lobes imbricate or valvate. Petals 3-6, free, rarely connate below, imbricate or valvate. Disc annular or cupular, rarely absent, free or adnate to the calyx tube. Stamens in l-2 whorls, as many as or twice the number of petals, free, or rarely connate at the base; anthers usually versatile, dithecous, with longitudinal dehiscence. Carpels 2-5, syncarpous; ovary sessile or stipitate, 2-5-loculed; each locule 2(-1) ovuled; placentation axile; style 1 or absent; stigma 2-5-lobed or undivided. Fruit drupaceous, indehiscent with 2-5 pyrenes or dehiscent. Seeds usually with membranous testa and without endosperm.
A family of 16 genera and about 500 species distributed in tropical regions of both hemispheres. Only 3 genera and 4 species are known from W. Pakistan.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the United States Department of Agriculture for financing this research under P.L. 480. Thanks are also due to Mr. B.L. Burtt (Edinburgh), Mr. E. Milne-Redhead (Kew) and Dr. S.A. Faruqi (Karachi) for their helpful suggestions.
