Erythroxylaceae

Erythroxylaceae is a family of dicotyledonous woody plants belonging to the order Malpighiales, with a pantropical distribution. It has 260 species included in areas of the subtropical regions of the two tropics, in Africa, Madagascar, Southeast Asia and tropical Australia, including islands such as New Caledonia. Around 200 American species have changed the focus of their biodiversity in South America.

General information

This family includes shrubs native to South America, whose leaves are traditionally chewed by the local population and whose large-scale illicit cultivation produces the famous cocaine alkaloid. The family is of ancient origin and is a family closely related to the Linaceae, in which some ancient taxonomists included it. Today there is no doubt about its autonomy due to the drupaceous fruits, the monadelphic stamens, the petals with appendages on their adaxial face and the staminal filaments forming a tube that covers the lower half of the gynoecium. The family Erythroxylaceae has four genera and 260 species, all of which are shrubs or trees. The genus Nectaropetalon has three African species. Pinacopodium has at least one species in the Congo River Basin and the genus Erythroxylum spans Asia, Australia, the islands of Oceania and both Americas. The South American populations of Erythroxylaceae of the genus Erythroxylum are often endangered due to indiscriminate logging in the small areas they occupy. However, they show a long adaptation of part of the American species to conditions other than the original humid forest. It has numerous endemic species, some with a small area of distribution, which occupy the hot tropical desert regions and the Amazonian humid forests, between 150 and 720 m altitude. Species are usually highly specialized to a specific type of habitat, which makes their expansion difficult. Some species shy away from floodplain forest areas.

Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is native to the rugged foothills of the Amazonian Andes.

The catuaba, Erythroxylum catuaba, is a small tree that produces yellow and orange flowers and a small, dark orange, oval-shaped poisonous fruit. It grows in the north of Brazil in the Amazonian tropical forest. Catuaba does not contain any of the active alkaloids of coca. However, it has a long use as an aphrodisiac. An infusion of the bark is traditionally used in Brazil as an aphrodisiac and central nervous system stimulant. Catuaba has three alkaloids, catuabine A, B and C, which increase sexual function by stimulating the central nervous system. The decoction of the bark is used for sexual impotence, agitation, nervousness, nerve pain, nervous weakness, poor memory, forgetfulness or sexual weakness.

Features

Upright trees or shrubs with leaves usually scattered and entire. Leaves are simple, alternate, stipulated, with a short petiole, entire blade. It has short inflorescences, 1-8-flowers. The flowers are almost always hermaphroditic and have the regular polygonal shape of a five-pointed star. Flowers of this shape are called actinomorphic. Actinomorphic flowers, pentamerous, petals with ligular appendages on the upper surface; with two whorls of stamens slightly concrescent at the base; gynoecium with 3-4 concrescent carpels in an ovary with 3-4 locules, only one carpel usually develops, with 1-2 seminal rudiments. In general, the small and hermaphroditic flowers have radial symmetry and are pentamerous with a double perianth. Some species are dioecious. The five sepals are free or fused. The five petals are free or partially united and may have scales (ligules). Flowers solitary or in pauciflorous axillary cymose fascicles, perfect, actinomorphic, heterostyled. Calyx and corolla free. Petals with ligulate appendages on the upper surface. They have ten stamens, monadelphous with filaments of two different lengths. elongated flowers with styles longer than stamens. Flowers short-styled with stamens longer than all three styles. Super gynoecium, 3-carpellate, 3-locular, with three styles, free, stigmas capitates. Three ovules, of which 2 abort and only one develops. The fruit is a seedy drupe, usually with a persistent calyx at the base.

Taxonomy

The family was described by Carl Sigismund Kunth and published in Nova Genera et Species Plantarum (quarto ed.) 5: 175. 1822. The type genus is: Erythroxylum P. Browne.

List of genres

• Gender Aneulophus Benth.
• Gender Erythroxylum P.Browne
• Gender Nectaropetalum Engl.
• Gender Pinacopodium Exell " Mendonça

List of species

• Gender Aneulophus
  • Aneulophus africanus

• Gender Erythroxylum
  • Erythroxylum amplifolium
  • Erythroxylum argentinum
  • Erythroxy Cocalum
  • Erythroxylum catuaba
  • Erythroxylum confusum
  • Erythroxylum macrophyllum
  • Erythroxylum monogynum
  • Erythroxylum novocaledonicum
  • Erythroxylum panamensis
  • Erythroxylum sp. "Cholmondely Creek"

• Gender Nectaropetalum
  • Nectaropetalum kaessneri
  • Nectaropetalum zuluense

• Gender Pinacopodium
  • Congolese Pinacopodium