Barbeyaceae Rendle
Habit and leaf form. Small, Olea-like trees; non-laticiferous and without coloured juice. Leaves opposite; simple. Lamina entire; lanceolate; pinnately veined. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins entire.
Leaf anatomy. Stomata mainly laterocytic.
Cystoliths absent.
Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar (with one trace). Internal phloem absent. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. ‘Included’ phloem absent. Xylem without tracheids; with libriform fibres; with vessels. Vessel end-walls horizontal; simple. Vessels without vestured pits. Primary medullary rays mixed wide and narrow.
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants dioecious. Anemophilous.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences axillary. Flowers ebracteate; ebracteolate; small; regular. Free hypanthium absent.
Perianth sepaline; 3, or 4; 1 whorled. Calyx 3, or 4 (the sepals of the female flowers pinnately net-veined); 1 whorled; gamosepalous (at the base). Calyx lobes markedly longer than the tube. Calyx regular; persistent; in the female flowers, slightly accrescent; of male flowers, valvate.
Androecium 6–9(–12). Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 6–9(–12); diplostemonous to triplostemonous; erect in bud; filantherous (with very short filaments). Anthers basifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; elongate, the connective apiculate. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate (colporoidate).
Gynoecium 1–3 carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth to isomerous with the perianth. The pistil 1 celled (when monomerous, i.e. usually), or 2–3 celled (when semicarpous). Gynoecium monomerous (usually), or apocarpous, or syncarpous; of one carpel (usually), or eu-apocarpous, or semicarpous (the carpels sometimes joined basally); superior. Carpel long stylate; apically stigmatic (the stigma decurrent on the long style); 1 ovuled. Placentation apical. Ovary 2 locular, or 3 locular. Styles free; apical. Placentation when semicarpous, apical. Ovules 1 per locule; pendulous; anatropous; apparently unitegmic.
Fruit non-fleshy; an aggregate (when G 2 or 3), or not an aggregate (when monomerous). The fruiting carpel when apocarpous or monomeric, indehiscent; nucular (shortly beaked). Fruit when semicarpous, of 2–3 basally joined nucules(?). Seeds non-endospermic. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight.
Physiology, biochemistry. Ellagic acid present.
Geography, cytology. Paleotropical. Sub-tropical. North East Africa, Arabia.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Malviflorae; Urticales. Cronquist’s Subclass Hamamelidae; Urticales. APG (1998) Eudicot; core Eudicot; Rosid; Eurosid I; Rosales. Species 1. Genera 1; Barbeya oleoides the only representative.
Cite this publication as: ‘L. Watson and M. J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The Families of Flowering Plants: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. Version: 14th December 2000. http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/’. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993, 1995, 2000), and Watson and Dallwitz (1991) should also be cited (see References).