Coriariaceae

Coriariaceae is a family of dicotyledonous plants belonging to the order Cucurbitales, with a single genus Coriaria.

Description

Herbaceous perennials, woody shrubs, sometimes small trees with rhizomes. Buds clustered in the leaf axils of the main axes; remarkably angular twigs that become terete, sometimes arched to pendulous, with lenticels suberose, the upper branches opposite and the lower ones opposite or triaded. The leaves are simple, opposite or whorled, without stipules, ovate to narrow linear, the base cordate, truncated or rounded, the apex rostrate to mucronate. The veins are reticulate, with 3 to 9 manifest veins. The inflorescences are arranged in elongated, pendulous racemes, with 3 to 4 pairs of small bracts at the base of the raceme; they rarely have solitary flowers. The flowers are small, bisexual or sometimes unisexual, protogynous, pentamerous, actinomorphic or with a slightly zygomorphic calyx, with or without bracts; sepals imbricate, persistent; petals valvate, fleshy, keeled, shorter than the sepals, persistent between the mature carpels; stamens 10 (-11) in 2 whorls, alternate, 5 each, opposite the petals, adnate to the keel of the petals; filaments elongate, 1.5-5 mm long, slender; sagitted anthers, exserted, 2 (-4)-locular, introsous, attenuated, with longitudinal dehiscence; gynoecium syncarpous, from 5 to 10 (-12) carpels, free at the top, but united at the base; ovary superior, unilocular; free style, terminal, elongated, the stigma along its ventral part, usually divergent; ovules solitary, anatropous, pendulous, with parietal placenta; fruit a pseudo-drupe composed of 5 to 10 cocci or achenes, keeled on the dorsal part, compressed on both sides and surrounded by the accrescent petals; Seeds compressed, with a membranous testa, with 5 to 7 or more longitudinal ribs, with scant endosperm, straight embryo.^{[citation needed]}

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 40 (diploid), 2n = 60 or 2n = 80 (tetraploid).

The most modern phylogenetic hypothesis of the order Cucurbitales and its classification into families and genera can be found in Schaefer and Renner (2011).

The smaller families of Cucurbitales, like this one, are described in Kubitzki (2011) and also, regarding their floral and vegetative characters, in Matthews and Endress (2004), in Zhang et al. (2007) and Renner et al. (2020), and these works are also a gateway to the vast morphological literature of these families.

Classification

Actual ranking is usually based on APG.