Family BERBERIDOPSIDACEAE
Description: Evergreen woody scramblers (climbing plants or scandent shrubs).
Leaves alternate; lamina margin entire to coarsely dentate, sometimes spiny-toothed; petioles usually more than 10 mm long; stipules absent.
Inflorescences terminal or axillary. Flowers in racemes, solitary or in pairs. Petals either distinct from sepals, or outer sepaloid tepals grading into inner petaloid ones. Disc extra-staminal, persistent in fruit, or absent. Stamens 6–many, whorled or irregular and densely packed, filaments short, anthers inserted along connective, (sub) basifixed, dehiscing longitudinally latero-introrse. Ovary 1-locular, placentas parietal, 3 or 5, ovules epitropous, 2 or more per placenta.
Fruit berry-like, indehiscent, with persistent style.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 2 genera, 3 species, Chile, E Australia; Australia: 2 genera, 2 species, Qld, N.S.W.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Berberidopsidaceae, Order: Berberidopsidales)
Wikipedia Previously included in Flacourtiaceae. Berberidopsidaceae are woody scramblers that can be recognised by their exstipulate, sometimes spiny-toothed leaf blades with palmate venation; the veins run straight into the spines, when present. The fruit is a berry crowned by the persistent style base. (P.F. Stevens (2001 onwards), Angiosperm Phylogeny Website Version 12, July 2012; accessed May 2017).
Text by (compiled) May 2017, based on K. Kubitzki, Berberidopsidaceae, in The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants Vol. 9: 33–35 (2007)
Taxon concept: Australian Plant Census (accessed May 2017)
| | Key to the genera | |
| 1 | Leaves much paler, often greyish, on lower surface, the margins often angled; hairy domatia in axils between the midvein and the lowest pair of secondary veins; disc present; stamens 6–13 | Berberidopsis |
| Leaves green on both surfaces, margins not angled; domatia absent; disc absent; stamens numerous | Streptothamnus |
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