Anacardiaceae
YASIN J. NASIR
National Herbarium, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad.
Trees or shrubs, often polygamo-dioecious or monoecious and with an acrid or milky juice. Leaves usually alternate, exstipulate, simple or compound. Flowers paniculate or in racemes, uni- or bisexual, regular. Calyx 3-5-partite. Petals 3-5, free, alternating with the calyx lobes, sometimes absent (Pistacia). Disk present. Stamens as many as the petals or more; anthers basi- or dorsifixed. Ovary of 1-5, free or united carpels. Ovary with a single pendulous fertile ovule (Spondias) in each loculus, or with only one loculus with a fertile ovule (Rhus). Fruit a drupe, dry or succulent.
A tropical family of 55 genera and c. 500 species occurring in the Mediterranean region, S.W., C. & E. Asia and America. Represented in Pakistan by 8-9 genera and c. 23 species, of which half the taxa are cultivated, the commonest of these being the edible mango (Mangifera indica) and the pepper tree (Schinus molle).
The following cultivated taxa (not included in the text) have been recorded by Parker (For. Fl. Punj. 1918), Sabnis (Fl. of the Punj.) or from other sources, but I have not seen any authentic specimens to verify this. They are: Pleiogynium solandri, Rhus laevigata, Rhodosphaera rhodanthema and Schinus dependens.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for financing this research under PL-480 and the British Council for a bursary which made it possible for the author to study the specimens in the various herbaria In U.K. Thanks are also due to Mr. I.C. Hedge, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh for going through the manuscript and giving valuable suggestions.
