The World Flora Online

Trees or shrubs, deciduous or evergreen. Leaves opposite, odd-pinnately compound, or trifoliolate, rarely simple, stipulate or exstipulate; leaflets with petiolules, less commonly subsessile, pinnately veined. Flowers bisexual to rarely unisexual, pinkish to white, pendent or erect, actinomorphic and hypogynous, arranged in panicles or racemes. Sepals 5, often petaloid, caducous or persistent, imbricate. Petals 5, free or connate at base, imbricate, rarely valvate, as equal as sepals. Stamens 5; filaments free or inserted on corolla tube, alternating with corolla lobes; anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Disk annular to barely discernible. Gynoecium superior; carpels 2 or 3(or 4), free or weakly united, lobed ovary with as many locules as carpels; style free or slightly united; ovules 1 to several and arranged in 2 rows. Fruits inflated capsules or follicles or berrylike drupes. Seeds globose to ovoid; arillode present or absent.

Source: [
• 1
]. 

Shrubs, rarely trees. Stems branched [single]. Leaves deciduous [persistent], cauline, opposite, usually ternate [odd-pinnate, 1-foliolate]; stipules caducous, extrapetiolar [intrapetiolar], distinct [connate]; petiole present; blade herbaceous, margins serrulate to serrate or crenulate-serrulate; ?leaflets: articulations or petiolule bases with 2 glands or stipels?. Inflorescences terminal [axillary], thyrses, drooping. Flowers bisexual [unisexual, plants dioecious], perianth and androecium hypogynous; epicalyx bractlet absent; hypanthium short-campanulate; sepals 5, distinct or basally connate; petals 5, distinct; nectar disc lobed, ?surrounding bases of ovaries?; stamens 5 in 1 series (alternating with nectary lobes), distinct, ?anthers X-shaped or sagittate, alternipetalous?; pistils 1[–2], ?[2–]3(–4)-locular, carpels connate [distinct], ovary: placentation axile or axile-basal?, styles ?(2–)3(–4)?, basally connate, distally postgenitally connate, stigmas expanded, flattened; ovules [1–]3–12 per locule. Fruits capsules [berries], ?inflated, usually 3-lobed, carpels becoming distinct distally, tardily so adaxially, and apically dehiscent; styles persistent, splitting?. Seeds 1 or 2 per locule, not arillate [arillate].

Source: [
• 2
]. 

Fls regular, hypogynous, pentamerous, perfect or seldom unisexual; sep and pet distinct, imbricate; stamens alternate with the pet, seated on or outside the annular nectary-disk, in which the ovary may be basally embedded; ovary mostly 2–3-locular, laterally and sometimes also apically lobed, with distinct styles or a single style (carpels distinct in Euscaphis); ovules (1–)6–12 in 2 rows in each locule on axile or basal-axile placentas, apotropous, commonly ascending, often only 1 or 2 per locule maturing; embryo straight, with 2 large, flat cotyledons, embedded in the copious, oily endosperm; shrubs or trees with opposite, pinnately compound or trifoliolate lvs, caducous stipules, and small fls in terminal or axillary drooping panicles or racemes. 5/50, irregularly widespread. The description based on the 3 genera of Staphyleoideae.

Source: [
• 5
]. 

SELECTED REFERENCES Dickison, W. C. 1986. Floral morphology and anatomy of Staphyleaceae. Bot. Gaz. 147: 312–326. Dickison, W. C. 1987. Leaf and nodal anatomy and systematics of Staphyleaceae. Bot. Gaz. 148: 475–489. Simmons, S. L. 2007. Staphyleaceae. In: K. Kubitzki et al., eds. 1990+. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. 10+ vols. Berlin etc. Vol. 9, pp. 440–445. Spongberg, S. 1971b. The Staphyleaceae in the southeastern United States. J. Arnold Arbor. 52: 196–203.

Source: [
• 2
].