OLACACEAE  

Trees or shrubs, glabrous or tomentose, sometimes hemiparasitic on roots; branches usually armed with spines; brachyblasts often ending in thorns. Leaves alternate, sometimes fascicled on brachyblasts, penninerved. lnflorescences axillary or at end of brachyblasts, in few- to many-flowered, peduncled, sometimes umbel-like, cymes or in fascicles, rarely solitary; bracts small. Calyx cupular-expanded, 4- or 5-toothed or -lobed, small, persistent, not accrescent in fruit. Petals 4 (rarely 5), free, hypogynous, bearded within, valvate in bud, linear-oblong, finally revolute +/- halfway, with a brush of hairs on inner surface, glabrous to sparsely pubescent on outer surface. Stamens 8 (rarely 10), free, hypogynous, opposite petals and alternating with them; filaments filiform, flattened; anthers linear-oblong to subovate, basifixed, 2-thecous, erect, longitudinally dehiscent, connective thick; staminodes 0. Ovary sessile, 3- or 4-locular at least at base; ovules 3 or 4, anatropous, bitegmic; style narrowly conical, grooved, shortly divided at apex; stigma capitate. Fruit a large, ovoid or globose drupe; pericarp thin and pulpy, edible but kernel contains a strong purgative. Seed with copious endosperm, containing oily substances. x= 12, 13 (1 report each).