Anacardiaceae

Trees or shrubs, containing resinous or milky sap. Leaves alternate, simple or compound. Stipules wanting. Inflorescence consisting of axillary or terminal panicles. Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual by reduction, small, usually actinomorphic. Sepals 3—5, free or united into a 3—5-partite calyx. Petals 3—5 or wanting, free or rarely connate at the base, imbricate. Disk generally annular. Stamens as many or twice as many as the petals, rarely fewer or numerous; filaments usually free, inserted at the base of the disk; anthers 2-celled, introrse. Ovary superior, —1 or 4—5-locular; styles 1 (—5); stigmas 1—5. Ovules solitary in each locule. Fruit generally a drupe with resinous mesocarp, surrounded by the base of the calyx or disk or sometimes at the top of a fleshy body formed out of the receptacle and the top of the pedicel, 1—5-locular. Embryo curved. Endosperm scanty or wanting. About 600 species in 80 genera in tropical and subtropical regions; a few species extending in the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere.