Anacardiaceae

Anacardiaceae is a family of essentially arboreal and shrubby plants belonging to the order Sapindales. It is made up of 77 genera with some 700 accepted species, of the almost 3000 described, typical of tropical, warm and temperate countries.

Description

They are trees, shrubs, rarely subshrubs or climbers, often with poisonous sap. They are dioecious, monoecious, andromonoecious, polygamous or hermaphrodite plants. They have alternate leaves, rarely opposite or whorled, simple or pinnately compound, petiolate or sessile, generally without stipules; when they are compound, the leaflets are opposite or sometimes alternate, with entire margins, serrated or crenate. The inflorescences are terminal and/or axillary, thyrsoid, paniculate, racemose or spiked, with deciduous or persistent bracts and bracteoles, petaloid or foliose, with actinomorphic, unisexual or bisexual flowers, with hypanthia sometimes present and perianth generally with 2 whorls. The fruit is drupaceous or samaroid, fleshy or dry, sometimes with a lateral or marginal wing, occasionally with an enlarged underlying calyx (Astronium) or attached to a fleshy hippocarp (Anacardium). Seeds, 1–12 in number, have scant or absent endosperm, a curved or straight embryo, cotyledons generally free, bilobed, equal or flat-convex.

Taxonomy

Anacardiaceae was described by Robert Brown and published in Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire, p. 431, 1818.

Genres

Synonymy

• Blepharocaryaceae, Comocladiaceae, Julianiaceae, Lentiscaceae, Pistaciaceae, Schinaceae, Spondiadaceae, Vernicaceae.
• Julianaceae.