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Genus Melicytus Family Violaceae

Synonyms: Hymenanthera APNI*

Description: Trees or shrubs.

Leaves alternate; stipules inconspicuous.

Inflorescences auxillary or borne below the leaves, often few-flowered, clustered. Flowers functionally unisexual, actinomorphic; pedicels with a pair of minute bracts. Calyx lobes subequal. Petals equal. Stamens free or united, rudimentary in female flowers; filaments short; anthers free, ovoid, with a dorsal, scale-like nectary and connective usually produced into a membraneous appendage. Ovary rudimentary in male flowers; placentas 2–5, each with several ovules; style with sessile stigmas.

Fruit a berry.


Distribution and occurrence: World 15 species, Soloman Islands. Eastern Australia., New Zealand, Norfolk Island and Fiji. Australia 3 species.

Text by L.J. Murray; updated L. Murray 2017 and K.L. Gibbons, Oct. 2019. Key, in part, modified from Stajsic et al. 2014.
Taxon concept: Flora of Australia vol. 8 p122., Stajsic et al. (2014) A revision of Melicytus (Violaceae) in mainland Australia and Tasmania Australian Systematic Botany, 2014, 27, 305–323.

 Key to the species 
1Mature leaves generally greater than 15 mm wide, Lord Howe IslandMelicytus novae-zelandiae
Mature leaves generally <10 mm wide, mainland NSW (also other states)2
2Plants with either male or female flowers only (rarely hermaphroditic, and apparently in New South Wales only); pedicels 3–6 mm long in male (and hermaphroditic) flowers; corolla in female plants 1.8–2.5 mm across at widest point. Leaves mostly >20 mm long, >2.5 mm wide, usually with at least two teeth per side; lateral nerves usually obviousMelicytus dentatus
Plants with hermaphroditic flowers only; pedicels 1.5–3 mm long; corolla 3.5–3.8 mm across at widest point. Leaves mostly <20 mm long, <2.0 mm wide, entire, or rarely with one tooth per side; lateral nerves usually obscure or absent
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Melicytus angustifolius

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