A. RADCLIFFE-SMITH

Monoecious glaucous laticiferous trees or shrubs, rarely herbs, usually glabrous. Leaves alternate, usually petiolate, stipulate, peltate or not, palmately lobed, palmatipartite or sometimes simple. Inflorescences racemose or paniculate, terminal or axillary, with a few ♀ flowers at the base, the rest of the inflorescence ♂; bracts sometimes foliaceous. Male flowers shortly pedicellate; calyx campanulate, often pigmented, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricate or contorted; petals 0; stamens 10, in 2 whorls, free, inserted between the lobes or glands of the disc; anthers dorsifixed, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode 0 or minute, trifid. Female flowers long-pedicellate; calyx ± as in the ♂ flowers; petals 0; disc hypogynous, entire or lobed; ovary 3-celled, with 1 ovule per cell, smooth or winged; styles shortly connate at the base, dilated and/or lobed. Fruit ovoid or ellipsoid, smooth or winged, septicidally dehiscent into 3 bivalved cocci. Seeds carunculate; testa crustaceous; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat.

A genus of c. 100 species ranging from SW USA to Tropical South America. A few species are widely cultivated in the tropics, but only 1 of these in Pakistan.

Lower Taxon

• Manihot esculenta Crantz

Related Synonym(s):

• Manihot utilissima Pohl = Manihot esculenta Crantz