Fagaceae

Monoecious trees or rarely shrubs, in Mai. evergreen, sometimes buttressed or with stilt-roots; growth mode flushwise, with perular buds. Hairs simple or stellate or fasciculate, rarely with resiniferous colleters, or scales on pits on the underside of the leaf. Leaves simple, spirally arranged, rarely in whorls of 3 or distichous, sometimes crowded near the top of each flush, penninerved, in Mal. entire or rarely crenate or sinuate. Stipules present, caducous or rarely rather long persistent, rarely interpetiolar or peltately attached. Inflorescence a cyme or a simple or branched spike, bracteate, ♂, ♀, androgynous (with the ♀ flowers borne on the lower part) or mixed. Flowers unisexual or functionally so. — ♂ Flowers: solitary or in dichasial clusters of 2-30 along the rachis, sessile or pedicelled; perianth campanulate or tubular, 6(-9)-lobed, or irregularly incised; stamens (4-)6-12(-90), filaments filiform, long exserted, free or rarely connate at the base; anthers linear to reniform, dorsi- or basifixed, lengthwise dehiscent; pistillode absent or present, densely hairy. — ♀ Flowers: sessile, solitary or in dichasial clusters of 2-15, surrounded by a cupule; ovary inferior, 2-6(-9)-celled, usually hairy; ovules anatropous, 2 per cell, apical and collateral; perianth usually regularly 6-lobed, sometimes poorly developed; staminodes 6-12, or absent; styles as many as ovary cells, terete, rather short, conical or tongue-shaped; stigmas capitate, punctiform, or covering the inner surface of the styles. Cupules solitary or in dichasial clusters, often woody, rarely reduced or absent, from saucer- or cup-shaped to enclosing the fruit, indehiscent or splitting into 2-8 or more ± equal segments, rarely consisting of 2 free segments, variously muricate, spiny, squamose, or with concentric or spiral lamellae, very rarely almost smooth. Fruit an indehiscent nut (achene), 1-3-celled, sometimes falsely multiseptate, rounded or sharply 2-3-angular. Seed one, exalbuminous; embryo-large; cotyledons large, flat-convex, plicate or ruminate; germination epigeal or hypogeal. Recent distribution. Seven genera with possibly c. 700 spp., the majority on the northern hemisphere. In the Old World the distribution extends southwards from 62°N in Scandinavia southheastwards to Kashmir and then northeastwards to the Sea of Okhotsk at c. 55°N. In Africa, Fagaceae are confined to the northern rim in the western Mediterranean region. In Asia Fagaceae are absent from the dry parts of the Middle East, from the Deccan Peninsula and Ceylon, from the desert and colder parts of China, from Manchuria, and from the extreme northern parts of Japan. In America, the distribution extends from Canada and the United States southwards to Central America, as far south as a few scattered localities in Columbia, in South America. On the southern hemisphere, Fageceae are present in Malesia, in the scarce wet parts of East Australia, in Tasmania, New Caledonia, and in New Zealand (otherwise absent from Pacific islands); in South America they occur from Fuegia and Staten I. northwards to Argentina and on the western slopes of the Andes in Chile up to 33°S. Fig. 1.