特徵描述
作者
LI, HUI-LIN and HUANG, TSENG-CHIENG
型態特徵
Shrubs, with 4-angled sarmentose branches, the lower opposite. Leaves opposite, rarely ternately whorled, quite entire, sessile, estipulate. Racemes axillary. Flowers small, green, hermaphroditic or polygamous; sepals 5, spreading, imbricate, persistent; petals smaller than the sepals, fleshy, keeled within, thickened after flowering and embracing the fruit; stamens 10, hypogynous, free or the alternate adnate to the petals, the filaments short; disc 0; carpels 5–10, free, 1-celled, whorled on a fleshy receptacle; styles slender, subulate, fleshy, papillose all over; ovule 1 in each cell, pendulous from the top. Fruit of 5 or 10 oblong compressed dry little nuts, closely embraced by the fleshy petals, 1-celled, 1-seeded. Seed compressed, the testa membranaceous; endosperm a thin layer.
屬
Monogeneric; species about 10, natives of the Mediterranean region, the Himalayas, Japan, New Zealand, Chile to Mexico.
