A revision of Crossonophelis (Sapindaceae)

Tress or shrubs, exceptionally scandent; monoecious or dioecious; indument either consisting of solitary simple hairs, sometimes intermingled with some pairs or small tufts, or mainly consisting of small stellate tufts; neither glandular-capitate hairs nor glandular scales present. Leaves either all spiral or partly decussate, unifoliolate or paripinnate, 1—6-jugate, the lowermost pair sometimes stipule-like; neither petiole nor rachis winged. Leaflets opposite to alternate, beneath smooth, glabrous or variably hairy, mostly with hair tufts in (part of) the nerve axils beneath; base equalsided to slightly oblique; margin entire to undulate, exceptionally (in C. africanus) coarsely dentate towards the apex; nerves usually looped and joined in the upper part only, veins and veinlets finely reticulate, prominulous at both sides (in C. palawanicus sometimes hardly visible above). Inflorescences terminal and mostly in the upper leaf axils, thyrsoid or paniculate (exceptionally racemose), with few spreading often densely flowered branches. Flowers actinomorphic. Calyx (3- or) 4- or 5-merous, the lobes connate at base, induplicatevalvate to nearly imbricate in bud, spreading during and persistent and recoiled after anthesis, equal, deltoid, not petaloid, outside densely tomentose, inside variably hairy to sometimes glabrous. Petals absent. Disk for the greater part adnate to the base of the calyx, complete, broad and flat, more or less distinctly lobed, without appendage, yellowish or reddish when fresh, purplish black when dry, glabrous or rarely variably pubescent. Stamens 4—7, equal, exserted, glabrous (except in C. adamii); filament threadlike, in ♂ flowers in nearly mature bud probably always bent twice, first to the back downward, up again to the ventral side; anther basifixed, emarginate at base, dehiscing lateral to introrse; staminodes short. Pistil 2- (in C. africanus very rarely 3-) merous; ovary sessile, about cordate to flattened-ovoid, densely hairy, inside cells with a few hairs at base (except in C. petiangensis; unknown in C. philippinensis and C. thorelii); style apical, conical and short to subulate and about as long as the ovary, variably hairy; stigma principally 2-lobed, the lobes nearly always erect (recurved in C. palawanicus), inside papillose, often apparently connate in which case the upper part of the style bears two thick, often shghtly twisted stigmatic lines; ovules 1 per cell, inserted on a knob on the base of the axis, erect, apotropous, subcampylotropous; pistillode small, white woolly. Fruit hardly to distinctly 2-lobed (1 lobe often not developed), the lobes slightly or not compressed, rounded, not winged, indehiscent, tomentose, scurfy, or glabrous, pericarp mostly rather thick and fleshy (thin in C. palawanicus, fibrous in C. penangensis, unknown in C. thorelii), endocarp membranous to thin-crustaceous. Seed with a thin-crustaceous to thin-coriaceous testa, closely adhering to the endocarp; no aril. Embryo straight to slightly curved, cotyledons transverse or obliquely superposed, about equal or the upper one slightly bigger, thick, seemingly superficially ruminate (mainly when dried), radicle ventral, minute (see also Capuron, l.c.). Distribution: 6—8 species, 2 or 3 of which in tropical continental Africa, 1 in Madagascar, 1 in Indo China, 1 on the Malay Peninsula, 1 in the Philippines, and 1 throughout Malesia from Sumatra to New Guinea.