Source:
SSA
Synonym(s):
Prunus subgen. Laurocerasus Kalkm.: 25 (1965). Pygeum Gaertn.: 218, t. 46 (1788); Koehne: 177 (1913); Graham: 45 (1960).
Description:
Deciduous or evergreen trees or shrubs; buds covered with imbricate scales. Leaves alternate or clustered, entire or glandular-serrulate, petiolate, usually with 2 or sometimes more glands at base; stipules small, usually free, sometimes intrapetiolarly connate, caducous. Inflorescences usually racemes, solitary in axils of leaves, with more than 10 flowers; bracts small, lower ones often empty and tripartite or tridentate, caducous. Flowers bisexual or occasionally a few male with +/- reduced ovaries present. Calyx: tube obconical, urceolate or cylindrical, with an adnate glandular disc inside; lobes 5, caducous, imbricate. Petals 5, white or pink. Stamens 10-20(-85), perigynous, free, arising with petals in throat of calyx tube; filaments free; anthers often glabrous. Ovary superior, consisting of 1 carpel, 1-locular, sessile; ovules 2, collateral, pendulous; style elongate; stigma peltate, capitate, or truncate. Fruit an ovoid to globose drupe; mesocarp fleshy-juicy; endocarp very hard, ovoid-globular, wrinkled or smooth, 1- or 2-seeded. Seed pendulous; testa membranous; pericarp dry. x= 8 (aneuploids, high polyploidy).
Distribution:
Species +/- 200, fairly cosmopolitan in temperate regions, particularly abundant in North America, E Asia, and S Europe, containing many important fruit trees, like Plum, Peach, Apricot, etc.; 1 indigenous in sthn Afr.: Prunus africana (Hook.f.) Kalkm., from tropical Africa, Zimbabwe into the Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape.
Classification:
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