Actinodaphne

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Actinodaphne
Actinodaphne malaccensis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Magnoliids
Order: Laurales
Family: Lauraceae
Genus: Actinodaphne
Nees
Species

See text

Synonyms[1]

Actinomorphe Kuntze

Actinodaphne lancifolia

Actinodaphne is an Asian genus of flowering plants in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It contains approximately 125 species[1] of dioecious evergreen trees and shrubs.[2]

Species range across tropical and subtropical regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia, southern China, Japan, New Guinea, Queensland, Solomon Islands, and Fiji.[1] There are 17 Chinese species, 13 of which are endemic.[2]

Description[edit]

The trees are 3 to 25 m tall, with leaves usually clustered or nearly verticillate, rarely alternate or opposite, unlobed, pinninerved, and rarely triplinerved. The flowers are star-shaped, small, and greenish. The flowers are clustered or whorled and are unisexual.[2] Umbels are solitary or clustered or arranged in a panicle or raceme; involucral bracts are imbricated and caducous. The perianth tube is short; perianth segments usually number six in two whorls of three each, nearly equal, and rarely persistent. The male flowers have fertile stamens usually 9 in three whorls of three each; filaments of the first and second whorls are eglandular, and of the third whorl are biglandular at the base; anthers are all introrse and four-celled; cells opening by lids; the rudimentary pistil is small or lacking. The female flowers has staminodes as many as stamens of male flowers; the ovary is superior; the stigma is shield-shaped or dilated. The fruit is a berry-like drupe seated on shallow or deep, cup-shaped or discoid, perianth tube. It has a small single seed dispersed mostly by birds.

Ecology[edit]

Actinodaphne species require continuously moist soil, and do not tolerate drought and frost.[citation needed] The laurel trees fall within the broad-leaved forests; mid-montane deciduous forests; and high-montane mixed stunted forests. Some species grow in high-elevation forests at 1,500–3,300 m (4,900–10,800 ft).

Species[edit]

125 species of Actinodaphne are accepted. They include:[1]

Formerly placed here[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Actinodaphne Nees. Plants of the World Online, Kew Science. Accessed 11 April 2023.
  2. ^ a b c Flora of China
  • "Actinodaphne". Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal – via eFloras.org, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO & Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA.


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