CAPPARACEAE  

Shrubs, small trees or scramblers. Leaves alternate, simple or 3-foliolate, petiolate; stipules often caducous. Flowers in corymbose racemes, terminal or axillary. Calyx closed in bud, later rupturing transversely, 'cap' often remaining attached on one side. Petals 0. Stamens many, on a columnar androphore. Ovary on a well-developed gynophore, 1-locular, appearing multilocular owing to development of spurious dissepiments from 6-10 placentas, multiovulate; stigma sessile. Fruit ellipsoid or oblong, with 8-10 longitudinal ribs. Seeds many.

Annual or perennial herbs, often somewhat woody at base; stems usually striate, glabrous to viscid, glandular-hispid and aromatic. Leaves alternate, simple or digitately 3-13-foliolate, petiolate; leaflets usually narrow and usually entire. Inflorescence a terminal raceme. Flowers usually irregular. Sepals 4, usually free or almost so, persistent or deciduous, usually narrow and often glandular-pubescent. Petals 4, sessile or clawed, equal or unequal, usually longer than sepals. Stamens 4-many, all fertile or some sterile, borne on a small torus or receptacle or on a long or short androgynophore; filaments equal or unequal, usually declinate; anthers 2-thecous, usually oblong or narrowly oblong, sometimes with a small, apical projection. Ovary sessile or with a short gynophore, with many ovules on 2 parietal placentas; style short or 0; stigma capitate or truncate. Fruit an oblong or linear capsule, often borne on an elongated gynophore, opening by 2 valves separating from seed-bearing placentas, terminating in persistent style; valves glabrous to glandular-pubescent, smooth or strongly longitudinally nerved. Seeds reniform to almost circular in outline, surface almost smooth or reticulate-foveolate to transversely rugose, glabrous or pubescent. x= 10 (aneuploids, high polyploidy).

Scramblers or shrubs with long branches usually with a pair of stipular spines at base of leaf. Leaves alternate, simple, entire, petiolate. Inflorescence terminal or axillary, paniculate, racemose, corymbose or umbellate, rarely with single, axillary flowers; bracts usually 0. Sepals 4, broadly ovate to orbicular, often with outer and inner ones unequal in size, convex, imbricate, free or nearly so. Petals 4, oblong or obovate, not clawed, usually white or cream becoming brownish. Stamens 6-many, free. Ovary on a gynophore at least 5 mm long, ovoid to almost spherical, with 4-many ovules on 2-many placentas; stigma indistinct, rarely capitate, on a style usually less than 1 mm long. Fruit a berry, spherical to cylindrical. Seeds 1-many, embedded in a fleshy pulp; embryo convolute. x= 6, 10 (aneuploids).

Trees or shrubs, with spreading branches often ending in spines, usually with a light yellowish or greyish bark. Leaves fascicled, alternate or irregularly spaced, simple, entire, coriaceous, petiolate. Inflorescence terminal or axillary, pedunculate or sessile racemes, panicles or corymbs, sometimes flowers fascicled; bracts setaceous or linear, entire, trifid, often caducous. Sepals 4, fleshy, scarcely fused at base with fleshy corona, valvate, yellowish green. Petals usually 0, rarely 1-4, spathulate. Stamens 5-22, hardly fused in an androphore. Ovary on a gynophore up to 8 mm long, ovoid, 1-locular, with (2)4-8 ovules on two parietal placentas. Fruit a berry with clusters of stone cells in exocarp. Seeds usually 1 or 2, usually with a pustulate or colliculate surface.