Pentaphylacaceae Plant Family
qiazhan English name: Pentaphylacaceae
Sub Title:
Pentaphylacaceae, flowering plant family of the order Ericales, composed of some 12 genera. The family is characterized by small flowers borne singly in the leaf axils (where the leaf stem and the branch meet) and curved embryos. Restructured by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group III (APG III) botanical classification system in 2009, Pentaphylacaceae consists of three groups that were previously placed in different families.
The first group, the genus Pentaphylax, consists of a single tree species (P. euryoides) that is scattered from Sumatra to China. It has spirally arranged evergreen leaves with entire margins (smooth, without teeth). The pollen sacs appear to be borne transversely on the stout filaments, and they open by flaps. There are only two ovules in each ovary chamber, and they produce winged seeds.
The second group consists of the subfamily Ternstroemioideae, with two genera of evergreen shrubs to trees that are especially abundant in Southeast Asia, Central America, and South America and have fleshy, animal-dispersed fruits. The genus Ternstroemia has more than 90 pantropical species. These species have leaves inserted all around the stem; they lack teeth and occur only at the end of each growth increment.
The third group includes 9 genera and more than 230 species. Eurya (about 75 species) occurs from Asia and Malesia to the western Pacific and Adinandra (75 species) is Indo-Malesian. The genus Freziera (some 57 species) is entirely American. The leaves in this group are often toothed and may remain rolled up as they elongate, so the lower surface of the blade has longitudinal markings. The flowers also occur in clusters in the leaf axils and usually produce berry fruits. Eurya and Freziera tend to grow in mountainous habitats; both genera have male and female flowers growing on different plants.
