Melianthales

Bersama abyssinica, from Flora of Zimbabwe.

Belongs within: Malvidae.

The Melianthales are a group of trees and shrubs with bird-pollinated flowers found in sub-Saharan Africa.

Characters (from Doweld 2001): Flower hermaphroditic, irregular; calyx 5-partite; four or five petals; four or five stamens, alternate with petals; filaments thick; anthers bilocular, dorsifixed, dehiscing via introrse slits; disc placed between petals and stamens, hippocrepiform, incompletely annular; ovary 4-5-locular; ovules 2-5, biseriate, ascending; capsule dorsihiscent or dorsilaterihiscent; seeds arillate or exarillate, with copious albumen, with embryonic axil straight.

<==Melianthales [Bersamoideae, Melianthoideae]
    |--Melianthus Tournefort 1694 [incl. Diplerisma Planchon 1851; Melianthaceae] D01
    |    |--M. comosus D01
    |    `--M. major D01
    `--Bersama Fresenius 1837 [incl. Natalia Hochstetter 1841; Bersamaceae] D01
         |--B. abyssinica D01
         |--B. lucens D01
         |--B. stayneri D01
         |--B. swynnertonii D01
         |--B. transvaalensis D01
         `--B. tysoniana D01

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[D01] Doweld, A. B. 2001. The systematic relevance of fruit and seed structure in Bersama and Melianthus (Melianthaceae). Plant Systematics and Evolution 227: 75–103.