Cochlospermaceae

Trees (or shrubs), often deciduous, producing gum and an orange juice. Leaves spread, palmatilobed, often with domatia in the axils of the main ribs; stipules caducous. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, showy, mostly golden-yellow, paniculate or racemose. Sepals 5 imbricate. Petals 5, imbricate or contorted, emarginate. Stamens ~, with free filaments, equal or subequal; anthers 2-celled, linear, basifixed, opening by introrse, short, often confluent pore-like slits. Ovary 1-celled with laminal placentas projecting into the cell, or perfectly or imperfectly 3-celled, the upper portion remaining 1-celled; ovules ~, style simple, stigma punctiform. Capsule 3—5-valved, valves of the endocarp separating from and alternating with those of the pericarp. Seeds covered by woolly hairs, mostly cochleate-reniform; endosperm copious, rich in oil; embryo large, conforming to the shape of the seed; cotyledons broad. Distr. Ca 15 spp., mostly in trop. and subtropical America, some in trop. Africa and SE. Asia, 3 species in N. Australia, rare in Malaysia; G. gillivrayi is possibly the only native Malaysian species. LAM assumed the genus to belong to the ‘antarctic’ type(Blumea 1 (1935) 135), but it is manifestly peri-tropical.