Geissolomataceae

Abstract

Densely leafy low shrub, 50-120 cm high, aluminium-accumulating. Leaves coriaceous, decussate, subsessile, simple, entire, ovate, base cordate, apex acute, margin thickened; stipules small, subulate, situated on the sides of the short, petiole-like leaf base. Flowers solitary, terminal on lateral short shoots, subtended by 3 pairs of decussate, persistent bracts, these increasing in size and petaloid above; vestigial flower buds often present in axils of uppermost bracts. Flowers with short, sharply 4-angled pedicels, hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, monochlamydeous, hypogynous; tepals 4, decussate, basally shortly connate, persistent, pink, turning carmine when older; stamens 4 + 4, attached basally to the floral tube; filaments slender, free; anthers 4-sporangiate, dorsi fixed, introrse, longitudinally dehiscent; nectary intrastaminal on floral cup with 4 nectary recesses opposite the tepals; gynoecium 4-carpellate; ovary superior, 4-lobate in transection, sessile, 4-locular; stylodia 4, free above the base but, at anthesis in apical part, postgenitally fused and twisted; stigma common to the four stylodia and punctiform; ovules 2 per locule, anatropous, pendulous from the apex. Fruit a hard, 4-lobed, loculicidal capsule enclosed in the persistent perianth; seeds 1 per locule, reniform, oblong, whitish, smooth; endosperm present; embryo straight, central; cotyledons long and linear.