COMBRETACEAE  

Trees, usually small in our area but sometimes very tall elsewhere, or rarely shrubs, without scales or microscopic stalked glands. Leaves usually alternate, often crowded at ends of branches, sometimes on short shoots, rarely opposite, petiolate or subsessile, usually entire but occasionally subcrenate, often with 2 or more glands at or near base of lamina or on petiole. Flowers usually bisexual and male in the same inflorescence (rarely all bisexual), usually in axillary spikes with male flowers towards apex and bisexual ones towards base, rarely in terminal panicles; male flowers stalked, stalks resembling pedicels but corresponding to lower receptacle with abortion of ovary; bisexual flowers sessile. Receptacle divided into a lower and an upper part, often scarcely developed, expanding into a shallow cup terminating in sepals (or calyx lobes). Petals 0. Stamens usually 10, exserted. Disc intrastaminal. Style free, not expanded at apex. Ovary completely inferior. Fruit a pseudocarp, very variable in size and shape but usually 2-winged, usually with an, at least partially, sclerenchymatous endocarp. Seeds: cotyledons (where known) spirally convolute. x = 12 (7, 13) (high polyploidy, B-chromosomes).

Small or medium-sized trees or occasionally shrubs, without scales or stalked glands. Leaves opposite or subopposite, petiolate, entire, almost glabrous or hairy. Flowers andromonoecious, bisexual and male in same inflorescence, 4- or 5-merous, pedicellate, in terminal and/or axillary or extra-axillary subcapitate racemes. Receptacle: upper part campanulate, joined to lower receptacle by a slender stalk-like region; lower part somewhat flattened. Bisexual flowers: sepals deltate, little developed; petals 4 or 5, usually +/- obovate; stamens 8-10, often 2-seriate; disc pilose with a short free margin; style not expanded at apex. Male flowers usually towards base of the inflorescence, as in bisexual ones but with ovary not developing and with a slender stalk replacing the lower receptacle (perhaps a true pedicel only towards base); style present or vestigial. Fruit 2-5-winged, often decurrent into comparatively long slender stipe. Seeds: cotyledons (where known) unfolding spirally and borne above soil level.

Trees, shrubs, shrublets or woody climbers, very rarely subherbaceous; lepidote or with microscopic and sometimes macroscopic stalked glands. Leaves opposite, or sometimes in whorls of 3 or 4, or rarely alternate, usually petiolate (rarely subsessile), almost always entire; petiole sometimes persisting (especially in climbers) forming a +/- hooked spine. Flowers bisexual, regular, or slightly irregular, 4- or 5-merous, in elongated or subcapitate axillary or extra-axillary spikes or racemes or in terminal or terminal and axillary, often leafy panicles. Receptacle usually clearly divided into a lower part and an upper part which varies from patelliform to infundibuliform and is itself sometimes visibly differentiated into a lower part containing the disc (when present) and an often more expanded upper part. Sepals: lobes 4 or 5 (rarely more), deltate to +/- subulate or filiform, sometimes scarcely developed. Petals usually 4 or 5 (rarely absent, in aberrant specimens and up to 7 in occasional flowers), small and inconspicuous to showy and exceeding the sepals, of various colours. Stamens twice as many as petals, inserted in 1 or more, usually 2, series inside upper receptacle and usually exserted. Disc glabrous or hairy, with or without a free margin, sometimes inconspicuous or absent. Style free (in sthn Afr. species); stigma sometimes +/- expanded. Ovary completely inferior. Fruit 4- or 5-winged, ridged or angled, sessile or stipitate, indehiscent or rarely tardily dehiscent; pericarp usually thin and papery, sometimes leathery, more rarely fleshy. Seeds: cotyledons various. x = 13 (11, 12, 14) (high polyploidy).