Sapotaceae

Abstract

Trees or shrubs, rarely geoxylic suffrutices or lianas, sometimes spiny; branching usually sympodial; latex nearly always present in trunk, branches and fruits, usually white, rarely yellow or blue; indumentum nearly always of malpighiaceous hairs (simple in Delpydora). Leaves alternate, spirally arranged or distichous, less frequently opposite or verticillate, simple, entire or very rarely spinous-toothed; petiole rarely bearing a pair of minute stipels; stipules + or 0. Inflorescence fasciculate or flowers occasionally solitary, axillary, ramiflorous or cauliflorous; fascicles occasionally arranged along short leafless axillary, panicle-like shoots; fascicle base sometimes developing into short, densely scaly brachyblasts. Flowers bisexual or unisexual (plants monoecious or dioecious), actinomorphic; calyx a single whorl of 4–6 free or partly fused, imbricate, sometimes quincuncial sepals, or 6–11 sepals in a closely imbricate spiral, or with 2 whorls of 2–4 sepals and then the outer whorl valvate or only slightly imbricate; corolla rotate, cyathiform or tubular, sympetalous; tube shorter than, equalling or exceeding the petals; petals 4–18, entire, lobed or partly divided or divided to the base into 3 segments and then median segment entire, 2 lateral or dorsal segments entire, laciniate or shallowly or deeply divided; stamens 4–35(−43), fixed in lower or upper half of corolla tube or at the base of the lobes, rarely free, in a single whorl opposite the corolla lobes, or, when more numerous than the corolla lobes, some opposite and some alternate with the corolla lobes, or sometimes several stamens clustered opposite each lobe, or arranged in 2–3 alternating whorls within the corolla tube, exserted or included; filaments often geniculate in bud, free, rarely fused into a staminal tube, or partially fused to the staminodes; anthers often extrorse; staminodes 0–8(−12) in a single whorl alternating with the stamens or fixed in the corolla lobe sinuses, simple or variously lobed, toothed or divided, sometimes petaloid; disk annular or patelliform, surrounding the ovary base and sometimes fused with it, or absent; ovary superior, l–15(−30)locular, loculi usually uniovulate, rarely 2−5-ovulate, placentation axile, basi-ventral or basal; style simple, included or exserted; style-head simple or minutely lobed. Fruit a berry or rarely a drupe, or tardily dehiscent by a single lateral valve; pericarp fleshy or less frequently leathery or woody; seeds 1-many, globose, ellipsoid, oblong, often strongly laterally compressed, testa usually smooth and shining, free from the pericarp, less frequently roughened, wrinkled or pitted and then often adherent to the pericarp; hilum adaxial, basi-ventral or basal, narrow or broad, sometimes extending to cover most or all of the seed; embryo vertical, oblique or horizontal, with thin foliaceous or thick flat or plano-convex, usually free, cotyledons; radicle included or exserted; endosperm + or 0. x = 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.