Trees of Tropical Asia Lamiales small.pdf - XTBG-Botany
Trees of Tropical Asia Lamiales small.pdf - XTBG-Botany
Trees of Tropical Asia Lamiales small.pdf - XTBG-Botany
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686<br />
Spathodea Spethodea<br />
Spathodea capanulata, the African tulip tree, cultivated widely, here in the Philippines; note the laminar glands at the leafle base,<br />
characteristic <strong>of</strong> the family.<br />
ASTERIDS (LAMIIDS): LAMIALES<br />
Cyrtandra<br />
GESNERIACEAE<br />
NAME: From the genus Gesneria, a genus <strong>of</strong> tropical<br />
herbs, the name <strong>of</strong> which commemorates Swiss naturalist<br />
Conrad Gessner, d. 1565, author <strong>of</strong> Historiae Animalium.<br />
They are most commonly known in English as the<br />
African Violet family.<br />
OVERVIEW: The gesneriads are a large family <strong>of</strong> herbs<br />
and lianas with about 150 genera and 3200 species. They<br />
share with other <strong>Lamiales</strong> opposite sometimes toothed<br />
leaves and an asymmetric lipped flower. They differ in<br />
an inflorescence <strong>of</strong> paired flowers .The ovary varies from<br />
superior to half-inferior to inferior while the fruit is either<br />
a dry dehiscent capsule or a fleshy berry, typically<br />
with a great many seeds. The traditional distinction with<br />
Scrophulariaceae is a unilocular ovary with parietal placentation<br />
rather than a bilocular ovary and axile placentation.<br />
CYRTANDRA. [Greek, in reference to the curved<br />
stamens.] Maybe 500 or more species, with centers <strong>of</strong><br />
species richness from Borneo north and eastward to Hawaii<br />
including secondarily woody species. About 16 or so<br />
on Kinabalu, maybe five <strong>of</strong> which could be called <strong>small</strong><br />
trees, reaching two m or so in height and two cm DBH;<br />
Malaya claims about 13 species, maybe three as shrubs,<br />
MERRILL loc. cit. (as updated by Leonardo Co) enumerates<br />
over 100 species for the Philippines, <strong>of</strong> which<br />
maybe 10 to 15 species reach 1-3 cm DBH. Most <strong>of</strong> the<br />
#<br />
Cyrtandra. The characteristic features <strong>of</strong> the genus are illustrated<br />
here by the Philippine endemic, C. oblongata, from the forest<br />
plot in Palanan, Isabela, Philippines. The stem barely reaches 2<br />
cm DBH, the paired leaves are clustered at the top <strong>of</strong> the single<br />
main axis; the flowers are large and paired from the leaf axil.<br />
(Photographs © Leonardo L. Co.)<br />
shrubs are <strong>of</strong> the schopfbaum habit - a single upright stem<br />
with a dense rosette <strong>of</strong> opposite leaves, <strong>of</strong>ten collecting<br />
leaf litter in the <strong>small</strong> canopy.