Castanea 栗屬
型態特徵
Deciduous trees or shrubs with furrowed bark; branchlets without terminal buds; winter buds with 3–4 scales. Leaves elliptic-oblong to broadly lanceolate, echinate-serrate, the veins numerous, pinnate. Flowers monoecious. Staminate flowers in slender, long spreading, erect catkins; perianth of 1 series, 6-cleft, tomentose or nearly glabrous outside; stamens 10–12, filaments very long, anthers 2-celled, very small, longitudinally dehiscent; reduced ovaries 3–5, long whitish-hairy. Pistillate flowers sessile, usually 3-clustered in a prickly involucre, borne at base of staminate catkins; perianth of 1 series, above the ovary, 6-cleft, tomentose outside; ovary 4–7-celled, glabrous outside, free from perianth, styles 4–10, needle-like, hairy at base, stigmas pointed. Nuts large, brown, rounded or plano-convex, marked at base with a conspicuous pale oval thickened scar, 1–7 enclosed in a prickly 2–4-valved involucre or bur, with hairy branched spines.
About 10 species in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere; two species cultivated in Taiwan. Trees commonly planted for ornamental or food purposes.
