Canthium

Canthium coromandelicum, copyright Vengolis.

Belongs within: Rubiaceae.

Canthium is a genus of deciduous, usually thorny shrubs and small trees found in the Old World tropics.

Characters (from Flora of China): Shrubs or small trees, sometimes dioecious, sometimes with short shoots, unarmed or sometimes with paired straight supra-axillary thorns. Raphides absent. Leaves opposite, with or without domatia; stipules persistent or caducous, interpetiolar, shortly united around stem, or fused to petiole bases, triangular, internally (i.e., adaxially) sometimes sericeous to pilose. Inflorescences axillary, cymose to fasciculate, few to several flowered, sessile to pedunculate, bracteate with bracts sometimes fused in calyculate pairs. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate, bisexual and monomorphic or sometimes unisexual. Calyx with ovary portion often subglobose to hemispherical; limb very short, truncate or 4- or 5-lobed. Corolla green to white or pale yellow, tubular, urceolate, or funnelform, with tube often constricted at top, inside variously pubescent but usually with ring of introrse hairs in tube; lobes 4 or 5, often long acuminate or aristate at apex, in bud valvate and often with apices held erect and pressed together forming apiculate projection, at anthesis notably reflexed. Stamens 4 or 5, inserted at corolla throat, partially to fully exserted; filaments short or reduced; anthers dorsifixed near base, elliptic to ovate, at anthesis reflexed. Ovary 2-5-celled, ovules 1 in each cell, pendulous from apical placenta; stigma included or exserted, capitate to cupular, entire to variously lobed, usually with style attachment recessed. Fruit brown, yellow, orange, or red, drupaceous, subglobose, ellipsoid, or often dicoccous when fully developed or reniform with only 1 seed, fleshy, with calyx limb caducous or infrequently persistent; pyrenes 2-5, 1-celled with 1 seed in each cell, ellipsoid to reniform, bony or crustaceous; seeds medium-sized to large, ellipsoid, cylindrical, or plano-convex; testa membranous; endosperm fleshy; radicle ascending.

<==Canthium
    |--C. attenuatum NC91
    |--C. coprosmoides NC91
    |--C. coromandelicum BJ99
    |--C. dicoccum P03
    |--C. neilgherrense RR02
    |    |--C. n. var. neilgherrense RR02
    |    `--C. n. var. chartaceum RR02
    |--C. odoratum B88
    |--C. oleifolium NC91
    `--C. parviflorum RS02

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[B88] Bouček, Z. 1988. Australasian Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera): A biosystematic revision of genera of fourteen families, with a reclassification of species. CAB International: Wallingford (UK).

[BJ99] Bremer, B., R. K. Jansen, B. Oxelman, M. Backlund, H. Lantz & K.-J. Kim. 1999. More characters or more taxa for a robust phylogeny—case study from the coffee family (Rubiaceae). Systematic Biology 48 (3): 413–435.

[NC91] Nielsen, E. S., & I. F. B. Common. 1991. Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). In: CSIRO. The Insects of Australia: A textbook for students and research workers 2^nd ed. vol. 2 pp. 817–915. Melbourne University Press: Carlton (Victoria).

[P03] Paul, T. K. 2003. Botanical observations on the Purulia pumped storage hydropower project area, Bagmundi Hills, Purulia district, West Bengal. Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India 45: 121–142.

[RS02] Radhakrishna, S., & M. Singh. 2002. Activity schedule and habitat use of the slender loris Loris tardigradus lydekkerianus. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 99 (3): 400–407.

[RR02] Ramachandran, V. S., & S. P. Raj. 2002. A note on the additional host range for the genus Korthasella van Tiegh. family Loranthaceae, from Nilgiris, southern India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 99 (3): 560.