Family Platanaceae
Description: Trees to 30–50 m high, monoecious, deciduous, with leaves, young stems and inflorescences densely dendritic-tomentose; wind-pollinated.
Leaves alternate; petiole swollen at base, enclosing young bud; stipules prominent and leaf-like; lamina simple, palmately lobed or palmatisect; margins often coarsely toothed.
Flowers actinomorphic, borne in dense unisexual globose clusters sessile on elongate axes, small, 3–4 (–8)-merous; perianth in 2 whorls, hypogynous, minute, distinct or basally connate. Male flowers with tiny or vestigial sepals and petals, sometimes with vestigial carpels; stamens as many as and opposite petals, subsessile; anthers opening by lateral slits; connective with a terminal peltate appendage. Female flowers often with 3 or 4 staminodes; petals absent; ovary superior; carpels (3–) 5–8 (–9), free, in 2 or 3 whorls, imperfectly closed, with style terminal and stigma extending onto apex of carpel; ovules 1 (rarely 2) per carpel.
Fruits small, hairy achenes or nutlets, borne in globular clusters on elongate axes; seeds with thin testa, scanty endosperm.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 1 genus, c.10 species, native to SE. Europe to Pakistan, Indochina, E. Canada to Guatemala. Australia (naturalised): 1 species WA (naturalised), ACT (doubtfully naturalised).
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Platanaceae, Order: Proteales)
Wikipedia
Text by K.L. Gibbons 18 Apr. 2023.
Taxon concept: APG IV, A.E. Orchard and B.J. Lepschi in Flora of Australia Online [accessed 17 Apr. 2023] and Heywood et al. 2007 Flowering Plant Families of the World (Kew: Surrey, U.K.).
| One genus in NSW: Platanus |
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