30. Dipentodontaceae
十齿花科 shi chi hua ke
Authors: Jin-shuang Ma & Bruce Bartholomew
Trees or shrubs, with bisexual flowers or dioecious, semievergreen or deciduous. Stipules small, distinct, caducous. Leaves alternate, simple, petiolate. Inflorescences axillary, on current year’s growth, abbreviated cymes in a pedunculate umbel or thyrses in a raceme or panicle. Flowers (4 or)5(-7)-merous, actinomorphic, 1-4 mm in diam. Sepals and petals ± undifferentiated, distinct. Stamens inserted at or in margin of a disk; anthers introrsed, longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary superior. Fruit a drupaceous tardily dehiscent capsule with 1 seed or a berry with 2-4 seeds. Seeds with or without an aril; endosperm present but thin.
Two genera and about 16 species: tropical Asia, America, Australia, and Pacific islands, extending into warm temperate E Asia; two genera and three species (two endemic) in China.
Both Dipentodon and Perrottetia have often been treated in the Celastraceae. However, both morphological and molecular evidence indicate that they are better treated in the family Dipentodontaceae (Zhang & Simmons, Syst. Bot. 31: 122-137. 2006).
Cheng Chingyung. 1999. Dipentodon. In: Cheng Chingyung & Huang Puhua, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 45(3): 175-177; Cheng Chingyung. 1999. Perrottetia. In: Cheng Chingyung & Huang Puhua, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 45(3): 184-186.
