MELIACEAE  

Trees, shrubs or suffrutices. Leaves simple, rarely compound, subsessile or petiolate. Flowers bisexual; axillary, solitary or fascicled; bracts many. Calyx with campanulate tube, 5-lobed. Petals 5, narrowed into a long claw. Disc small or 0. Stamens 7-10(20); filaments connate into a long, slender tube widening upwards; tube 10-toothed or -lobed, sometimes with lobes fimbriate or 2-partite or -notched; anthers usually shortly apiculate. Ovary sessile, sometimes ribbed, with (3)4-10(20) locules, with 2 collateral or superposed ovules in each locule; style exserted, filiform; stigma discoid, capitate, or globose. Fruit a (3)4-10(20)-locular loculicidal capsule with each locule 1- or 2-seeded. Seeds red or black, subglobose with +/- conspicuous orange, red or whitish aril. x = 25?

Trees, deciduous or semi-evergreen, monoecious. Leaves paripinnate; leaflets entire or toothed. Flowers unisexual; in large panicles. Sepals free or partly united. Petals 5, imbricate, adnate at the base by a median carina to the short cushion-shaped androgynophore. Stamens 5, free, arising on androgynophore; 1-5 thread-like staminodes sometimes present. Ovary 5-locular; locules with 6-10 ovules; style head discoid with glandular stigmatic papillae. Fruit a pendulous, thinly woody, ellipsoid or obovoid, septifragal capsule, opening from apex by 5 valves, columella softly woody. Seeds winged at one or both ends. x = 14 (13) (aneuploids, polyploidy).

Shrubs or small trees. Leaves mostly in fascicles on abbreviated short shoots, simple, entire; indumentum of simple hairs. Flowers bisexual, solitary, axillary. Calyx 4-lobed to near base. Petals 4, imbricate. Stamens 8; filaments curved, fused only near base, without appendages; anthers medifixed. Disc thin, partly fused to base of staminal tube. Ovary 4-lobed, with 4 locules, each with 2 collateral ovules; style exserted with a simple, minute, scarcely expanded style head. Fruit a papery, inflated capsule with laterally compressed, wing-like locules, at first suffused with carmine. Seeds reniform, minutely verrucose, puberulent. x = 8 (aneuploids-1 report, high polyploidy).

Large trees, monoecious. Leaves paripinnate; leaflets entire. Flowers unisexual; in large panicles. Calyx 4- or 5-lobed almost to base, imbricate. Petals 4 or 5, contorted, erect in open flowers. Staminal tube urceolate, bearing 8-10 included anthers or antherodes towards apex and terminated by 8-10 suborbicular, emarginate or irregularly lobed, overlapping appendages alternating with anthers or antherodes. Disc in male flowers cushion-shaped, fused to base of pistillodes, less conspicuous in female flowers. Ovary 4- or 5-locular, each locule with 12-18 ovules; style head discoid with crenulate margin, upper surface with stigmatic ridges. Fruit an erect, subglobose, woody, septifragal capsule opening by 4-6 valves from the apex. Seeds 8-18 per locule, narrowly winged all round margin. x = 10 or 25 (50).

Trees or shrubs, dioecious. Leaves imparipinnate; leaflets entire, opposite or subopposite; leaf rachis sometimes winged. Flowers unisexual; in axillary panicles. Calyx saucer-shaped, 4- or 5(6)-lobed. Petals 4-6, imbricate. Disc annular, free or united to ovary. Stamens 10, connate into cup or basin-shaped tube; anthers sessile on tube. Ovary sessile, 2-5(6)-locular, with 2 superposed ovules in each locule; style short and thick; stigma obscurely 4- or 5-lobed. Fruit a dry, globose drupe with 1-5 pyrenes. Seeds mostly 1 per locule, exarillate. x = 23.