| # The Families of Angiosperms |

L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz

### Quiinaceae Engl.

~ Ochnaceae-Quiinoideae.

Habit and leaf form. Trees, or shrubs, or lianas; not resinous. Leaves opposite, or whorled; petiolate; simple. Lamina dissected, or entire; when dissected, pinnatifid (lobed); pinnately veined. Leaves stipulate. Stipules interpetiolar; rigid or foliaceous. Lamina margins entire, or crenate.

Leaf anatomy. The leaf lamina dorsiventral. Stomata present; mainly confined to one surface (abaxial); paracytic. Hairs very infrequent. Lamina with secretory cavities (?), or without secretory cavities (but common in the petioles). Secretory cavities where present, containing mucilage; lysigenous. The mesophyll containing crystals. The crystals druses and solitary-prismatic.

Axial (stem, wood) anatomy. Young stems with solid internodes. The cortex containing cristarque cells. Pith homogeneous. Nodes tri-lacunar. Primary vascular tissues in a cylinder, without separate bundles; collateral. Internal phloem absent. Cortical bundles absent. Medullary bundles absent. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring. Primary medullary rays narrow (uniseriate).

The wood diffuse porous. The vessels fairly small; solitary and radially paired, or in tangential arcs (but usually solitary with a few radial pairs). The vessel end-walls oblique; usually simple. The vessels without vestured pits; without spiral thickening. The axial xylem with tracheids; with vasicentric tracheids (sometimes), or without vasicentric tracheids; with fibre tracheids; without septate fibres. The fibres without spiral thickening. The parenchyma apotracheal. The secondary phloem not stratified. ‘Included’ phloem absent. The wood not storied. Tyloses absent.

Reproductive type, pollination. Unisexual flowers present, or absent. Plants hermaphrodite, or polygamomonoecious, or polygamodioecious.

Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in racemes, or in panicles. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary; panicles or racemes. Flowers small; regular, or somewhat irregular.

Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 8–10(–13); 2 whorled; isomerous, or anisomerous. Calyx 4, or 5; 1 whorled; polysepalous (the sepals small); unequal but not bilabiate; imbricate. Corolla 4–5(–8); 1 whorled; polypetalous; imbricate, or contorted.

Androecium 15–30, or 30–170 (to ‘many’). Androecial members free of the perianth, or adnate (to the corolla, below); free of one another, or coherent (below). Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 15–30, or 30–170; triplostemonous, or polystemonous. Anthers basifixed (small); non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse (the thecae sharply distinct), or latrorse (the thecae back to back and latrorse, Froesia); bilocular; tetrasporangiate. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate.

Gynoecium 2–3 carpelled, or 3 carpelled, or 7–11(–13) carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth to increased in number relative to the perianth. The pistil when syncarpous, 2–3 celled, or 7–11(–13) celled. Gynoecium apocarpous (Froesia), or syncarpous; eu-apocarpous (Froesia, with three distinct carpels), or synovarious; superior. Carpel in Froesia stylate; 2 ovuled. Ovary when syncarpous, 2–3 locular, or 7–11(–13) locular (reflecting the carpel number). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 2–3, or 7–11(–13) (one per carpel); free (linear). Stigmas 2–3, or 7–11(–13); obliquely peltate. Placentation when syncarpous, basal to axile. Ovules 2 per locule; ascending; anatropous.

Fruit fleshy. The fruiting carpel in Froesia, dehiscent, or indehiscent (?); baccate. Fruit dehiscent (at full maturity), or indehiscent; a capsule (baccate), or a berry. Capsules when dehiscent, valvular. Fruit usually only 1–4 seeded (often only 1–2 locular through abortion of the others). Seeds non-endospermic; conspicuously hairy (usually, tomentose), or not conspicuously hairy (Froesia). Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2 (thick). Embryo straight.

Seedling. Germination cryptocotylar.

Physiology, phytochemistry. Not cyanogenic.

Geography, cytology. Neotropical. Tropical. Tropical South America.

Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli (? — stipules, polypetalous, etc.). Dahlgren’s Superorder Theiflorae; Theales. Cronquist’s Subclass Dilleniidae; Theales. APG III core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Rosanae; fabid. APG IV Order Malpighiales (as a synonym of Ochnaceae).

Species 50. Genera 4; Froësia, Lacunaria, Quiina, Touroulia.

General remarks. Differing from Ochnaeae (q.v.) in leaf insertion, gynoecium form and manner of capsule dehiscence, as well as in ‘esoteric characters’ involving leaf and stem anatomy.

Illustrations. • Quiina longifolia: Hutchinson. • Lacunaria jenmanii (as Touroulia): Hook. Ic. Pl. 20 (1891). • Quiina schippii: Standley & Williams, Fl. of Guatemala 7 (1961). • Quiina jamaicensis: Fawcett & Rendle, Fl. of Jamaica 5 (1926).

We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, distributions of character states within any set of taxa, geographical distribution, genera included in each family, and classifications (Dahlgren; Dahlgren, Clifford, and Yeo; Cronquist; APG). See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.

Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 8th June 2026. delta-intkey.com’.

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