SAIDA QAISER

Trees. leaves alternate, oblong, reticulate, entire or crenate. Flowers rather large and showy, borne in terminal and axillary racemes. Calyx tube usually top shaped with 6-lobes. Petals 6, usually borne on a disc, more or less unequal, spreading and incurved. Stamens several in 2-rows, one row forms a ring or cup-like structure in the centre of the flower and around the ovary, the other longer and arising from one side like a fringed palm or spatula over the pistil. Ovary 5-7-loculed with several ovules in each locule. Fruit large, globular, coriaceous, woody, indehiscent. Seeds many, embedded in the pulp.

A genus with about 9 species, distributed in tropical America; one is cultivated in Pakistan:

Lower Taxon

• Couroupita guianensis Aubl.