The World Flora Online

Herbs, subshrubs, shrubs, [or trees], annual, biennial, or perennial, evergreen (leaves withering in age), scabrid, trichomes (1) unbranched and smooth, knobby, notched, or antrorsely or retrorsely barbed, (2) dendritic, and/or (3) stinging. Leaves alternate [opposite], simple; stipules absent; petiole present or absent; blade sometimes lobed, margins entire, serrate, dentate, or crenate; venation pinnate, basal secondary veins commonly present. Inflorescences terminal, cymes, thyrses, racemes, panicles, or flowers solitary. Flowers bisexual, usually radially symmetric, rarely bilaterally symmetric (by bilateral symmetry of corolla, androecium, or gynoecium); perianth and androecium epigynous; hypanthium adnate to ovary proximally and free distally, or completely adnate to ovary; sepals 5, radially symmetric, distinct or connate basally; petals 5, radially or bilaterally symmetric, distinct or connate, sometimes postgenitally coherent; nectary absent or present, distal on ovary; stamens 5–150+, distinct, free or adnate to petal bases, bilaterally or radially symmetric; anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits; staminodes absent or present, sometimes petaloid and petals appearing to be 6+; pistil 1, 3–7-carpellate, ovary inferior, 1-locular, placentation parietal, subapical, or apical; ovules 1–60+ per locule, anatropous (epitropous); style 1; stigma 1, 2–5(–7)-lobed (lobes usually as many as carpels, except in pseudomonomerous Gronovioideae). Fruits capsules, dehiscence by apical valves [splitting longitudinally], or cypselae, sepals or sepals and petals persisting. Seeds 1–60+ per fruit.

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Fls perfect, regular, epigynous; sep (4)5(–7), persistent; pet (4)5(–7) or 10 by development of petaloid staminodes, induplicate-valvate, distinct or sometimes basally adnate to the stamen- tube, or even forming a sympetalous, lobed cor; stamens 10 to more often numerous, distinct or basally connate into a short tube or into antepetalous bundles, some of them often modified into petaloid or scale-like or nectariferous staminodia; ovary of 3–5(–7) carpels, inferior, unilocular, with parietal, often ± deeply intruded placentas; style solitary; ovules 1–many on each placenta; fr generally a capsule; seeds mostly with abundant, oily endosperm; erect or climbing herbs or shrubs, usually with an indument of bristly, barbed, hooked, or stinging hairs; lvs exstipulate, simple but often lobed. 14/2000+, New World.

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SELECTED REFERENCES Brown, D. K. and R. B. Kaul. 1981. Floral structure and mechanism in Loasaceae. Amer. J. Bot. 68: 361–372. Carlquist, S. 1984. Wood anatomy of Loasaceae with relation to systematics, habit and ecology. Aliso 10: 583–602. Ernst, W. R. and H. J. Thompson. 1963. The Loasaceae in the southeastern United States. J. Arnold Arbor. 44: 138–142. Hufford, L. 1990. Androecial ontogeny and the problem of monophyly of Loasaceae. Canad. J. Bot. 68: 402–419. Moody, M. L. and L. Hufford. 2000. Floral ontogeny and morphology of Cevallia, Fuertesia, and Gronovia (Loasaceae subfamily Gronovioideae). Int. J. Pl. Sci. 161: 869–883. Poston, M. E. and J. W. Nowicke. 1993. Pollen morphology, trichome types, and relationships of the Gronovioideae (Loasaceae). Amer. J. Bot. 80: 689–704. Weigend, M., J. Kufer, and A. A. Mueller. 2000. Phytochemistry and the systematics and ecology of Loasaceae and Gronoviaceae (Loasales). Amer. J. Bot. 87: 1202–1210. Weigend, M. 2004. Loasaceae. In: K. Kubitzki et al., eds. 1990+. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. 9+ vols. Berlin etc. Vol. 6, pp. 239–254.

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