Synonyms: Hymenanthera APNI*
Description: Trees or shrubs.
Leaves alternate; stipules inconspicuous.
Inflorescences auxillary or borne below the leaves, often few-flowered, clustered. Flowers functionally unisexual, actinomorphic; pedicels with a pair of minute bracts. Calyx lobes subequal. Petals equal. Stamens free or united, rudimentary in female flowers; filaments short; anthers free, ovoid, with a dorsal, scale-like nectary and connective usually produced into a membraneous appendage. Ovary rudimentary in male flowers; placentas 2–5, each with several ovules; style with sessile stigmas.
Fruit a berry.
Distribution and occurrence: World 15 species, Soloman Islands. Eastern Australia., New Zealand, Norfolk Island and Fiji. Australia 3 species.
Text by L.J. Murray; updated L. Murray 2017 and K.L. Gibbons, Oct. 2019. Key, in part, modified from Stajsic et al. 2014.
Taxon concept: Flora of Australia vol. 8 p122., Stajsic et al. (2014) A revision of Melicytus (Violaceae) in mainland Australia and Tasmania Australian Systematic Botany, 2014, 27, 305–323.
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Mature leaves generally greater than 15 mm wide, Lord Howe Island | Melicytus novae-zelandiae |
| Mature leaves generally <10 mm wide, mainland NSW (also other states) | 2 |
| 2 | Plants with either male or female flowers only (rarely hermaphroditic, and apparently in New South Wales only); pedicels 3–6 mm long in male (and hermaphroditic) flowers; corolla in female plants 1.8–2.5 mm across at widest point. Leaves mostly >20 mm long, >2.5 mm wide, usually with at least two teeth per side; lateral nerves usually obvious | Melicytus dentatus |
| Plants with hermaphroditic flowers only; pedicels 1.5–3 mm long; corolla 3.5–3.8 mm across at widest point. Leaves mostly <20 mm long, <2.0 mm wide, entire, or rarely with one tooth per side; lateral nerves usually obscure or absent
Back to 1 | Melicytus angustifolius |
|
