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12. Casearia Jacquin, Enum. Syst. Pl. 4, 21. 1760.
脚骨脆属 jiao gu cui shu
Antigona Vellozo; Athenaea Schreber (1789), not Adanson (1763); Vareca Gaertner.
Shrubs or small trees. Leaves alternate, usually petiolate; stipules usually small, caducous, rarely larger and/or persistent; leaf blade usually pinnate-veined, sometimes 3-veined from base, often with pellucid glandular dots and lines throughout (view at 10 × against light), margin entire or toothed. Flowers perigynous, bisexual, small, usually clustered in axillary, few- to many flowered, sessile or shortly pedunculate fascicles, rarely solitary or in small cymes; bracts papery or scalelike, generally ovate, small, congested at fascicle base to form a persistent cushion; pedicels usually present, articulate, rarely flowers practically sessile. Sepals 4 or 5, imbricate, joined in basal part to form a shallow or deeper cup, free above, cup never adnate to ovary. Petals absent. Disk cuplike, adnate to inside of calyx tube, free from ovary, rim lobed; lobes triangular, oblong, or clavate, usually hairy, either in same row as and alternating with stamens, or in an intrastaminal row. Stamens (6-)8-10(-12); filaments inserted on rim of disk cup. Ovary superior, 1-loculed; placentas 2-4, each with several ovules; style 1, entire or distally 3-branched, sometimes very short; stigma capitate, 3-lobed when style is entire. Capsule fleshy to leathery, globose, ellipsoid or 3-angled when fresh, mostly 6-ribbed when dry, (2 or)3(or 4)-valvate, dehisced valves often naviculate; sepals, stamen filaments, disk, and disk lobes generally persistent at capsule base, style remnant often persistent at apex. Seeds several, ovoid or obovoid, arillate, aril completely covering seed, membranous or fleshy, often brightly colored, soft, partly fimbriate.
About 180 species: tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, North and South America, and the Pacific islands; seven species in China.
In Chinese species: flowers in axillary glomerules; disk lobes in same row as stamens; style entire; capsule fleshy. More gatherings are needed for the genus from China, Myanmar, India, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, from which more accurate, detailed, and standardized descriptions and keys can be drawn. Chinese material of Casearia kurzii, C. tardieuae, and C. velutina seems particularly scarce. Between some species, the flowers and fruit offer few diagnostic characters. The following key is tentative.
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| 1 |
Stipules narrowly lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 1.5-10 mm |
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(2) |
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Stipules broadly triangular or broadly ovate, minute, 1-2 mm |
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(3) |
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| 2 (1) |
Stipules narrowly lanceolate, 5-10 mm, early caducous, on young growth leaving a large conspicuous pale brown scar; leaves with 10-14 pairs of lateral veins; in dried material pellucid dots and streaks throughout leaf blade usually clearly visible at × 10 mag. without holding leaf up to light, reddish brown, contrasting sharply against color of leaf; leaves glabrous or glabrescent below. |
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5 C. graveolens |
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Stipules linear-lanceolate, 1.5-3 mm, persistent for some time; leaves with 5-8 pairs of lateral veins; in dried material pellucid dots and streaks throughout leaf blade not clearly visible at × 10 mag. without holding leaf up to light, nor reddish brown, nor contrasting sharply against color of leaf; leaves usually pubescent beneath, less often glabrous. |
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1 C. flexuosa |
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| 3 (1) |
Abaxial surfaces of mature leaves pubescent, at least along midvein and lateral veins |
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(4) |
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Abaxial surfaces of mature leaves glabrous |
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(5) |
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| 4 (3) |
Pedicels 2-4 mm in flower, 5-6 mm in fruit. |
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2 C. velutina |
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Pedicels 5-8 mm in flower, ca. 10 mm in fruit. |
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3 C. kurzii |
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| 5 (3) |
Leaves leathery. |
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4 C. tardieuae |
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Leaves papery to membranous |
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(6) |
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| 6 (5) |
Terminal bud, pedicel, and calyx hairy, stamen filaments usually hairy (rarely nearly glabrous); capsule slightly to not at all ridged, pericarp veined, vesicled, vesicles black and shiny in cross-section (subglabrous C. kurzii var. gracilis might also key out here). |
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6 C. glomerata |
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Terminal bud hairy or glabrous, pedicel, calyx, and stamen filaments usually glabrous (rarely puberulous); capsule usually strongly ridged, pericarp veined but not conspicuously vesicled. |
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7 C. membranacea |
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Lower Taxa
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