| # The Families of Angiosperms |

L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz

### Podoaceae Baill. ex Franch.

~ Anacardiaceae.

Including Podoönaceae Baillon ex Franchet

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs, or herbs; dubiously not resinous. Perennial; when herbaceous, rhizomatous. Leaves alternate, or opposite; long petiolate; non-sheathing; simple. Lamina dissected, or entire; when dissected, palmatifid (trilobed); pinnately veined, or palmately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins serrate.

Axial (stem, wood) anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

The vessel end-walls simple. The axial xylem without fibre tracheids; with libriform fibres; including septate fibres. The parenchyma paratracheal (sparse).

Reproductive type, pollination. Unisexual flowers present. Plants dioecious. Female flowers without staminodes (seemingly without trace of an androecium). Gynoecium of male flowers pistillodial to absent.

Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in panicles (thyrses). The ultimate inflorescence units cymose. Inflorescences terminal; terminal thyrses. Flowers bracteate (male bracts linear or (in Campylopetalum) some of them large, long-stalked, membranous-reticulate and becoming coloured, the female bracts adnate to the pedicels, membranous-reticulate, suborbicular); minute to small; regular. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present (in the female flower — representing a vestigial perianth?); annular.

Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla (in male flowers), or absent (in female flowers), or vestigial (if represented by the disk of the female flower); in male flowers, 4, or 5. Calyx 1 whorled; gamosepalous; 4–5 toothed; cupuliform; regular; open in bud. Corolla 4, or 5; 1 whorled; polypetalous; valvate; regular. Petals clawed, or sessile (sometimes elongate-filiform).

Androecium of male flowers, 8, or 10. Androecial members free of the perianth; united with the gynoecium (sometimes, to the base of the rudimentary pistil, when this present), or free of the gynoecium; free of one another. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 8, or 10; diplostemonous. Anthers short, extrorse, or introrse. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate; colporate.

Gynoecium ostensibly 1 carpelled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth. The pistil 1 celled. Gynoecium monomerous (ostensibly), or syncarpous (presumably peudomonomerous); of one carpel (ostensibly), or eu-syncarpous (i.e. presumably pseudomonomerous); superior. Carpel if treated as monomerous, stylate (the style short or long-filiform, with lateral stigma); 1 ovuled. Placentation basal. Ovary 1 locular; sessile. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1; 1 lobed (simple). Placentation basal. Ovules in the single cavity 1; long funicled; pendulous (from the long, basal funicle); anatropous (?).

Fruit non-fleshy. The fruiting carpel if considered monomerous, indehiscent (lenticular, attached to the midrib of the accrescent bract); an achene. Fruit if treated as syncarpous, indehiscent; achene-like (lenticular, attached to the midrib of the accrescent bract); 1 seeded. Seeds non-endospermic. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2.

Geography, cytology. Paleotropical. Tropical. Southeast Asia.

Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Rutiflorae; Sapindales. Cronquist’s Subclass Rosidae; Sapindales. APG III core angiosperms; core eudicot; Superorder Rosanae; malvid. APG IV Order Sapindales (as a synonym of Anacardiaceae).

Species 3. Genera 2; Dobinea (Podoön), Campylopetalum.

General remarks. It would help to know whether these species are resinous ..... As this compilation stands, they are dubiously distinguishable from Anacardiaceae sensu stricto (q.v.) via serrate leaf margins, cymose inflorescences, and assorted floral and fruit characters (floral morphological comparisons being much complicated by dioecism and monoecism).

Illustrations. • Dobinea delavayi: Hutchinson.

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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