A. RADCLIFFE-SMITH
Triadica Lour.
Monoecious glabrous laticiferous trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate, simple, entire or toothed, penninerved, usually glandular beneath, on the margins and/or at the base. Inflorescences spicate or racemiform, terminal or leaf-opposed, usually solitary, usually bisexual, mostly ♂ with 1 or more ♀ flowers at the base; ♂ bracts 1-many-flowered, usually biglandular at the base; bracteoles minute. Male flowers: pedicels articulate or 0; calyx ± open in bud, the lobes small, imbricate or valvate; petals 0; disc 0; stamens 2-4, filaments free, short, anthers basifixed, extrorse, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode 0. Female flowers usually long-pedicellate; sepals 2-4, free or united, imbricate or not touching; petals 0; disc 0; ovary 2-4-celled,with 1 ovule per cell, appendaged or not; styles 2-4, free or united, undivided, often coiled, not usually persistent. Fruit 2-4-lobed, septicidally, loculicidally or irregularly dehiscent or indehiscent and drupaceous or bacciform; exocarp smooth or cornute. Seeds usually ecarun-culate; exotesta fleshy or waxy; endotesta crustaceous; albumen fleshy; coty-ledons broad, flat.
A pantropical genus of c. 125 species, only one of which is cultivated and naturalized in Pakistan.
