Apodytes

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Apodytes
Apodytes dimidiata tree - Cape Town 77.jpg
Apodytes dimidiata
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Metteniusales
Family: Metteniusaceae
Genus: Apodytes
E.Mey. ex Arn. (1840)
Species

See text

Apodytes is a genus of flowering plants in the family Metteniusaceae. It was formerly either unplaced as to family or placed in the family Icacinaceae. [1] It consists of about 8 species of evergreen trees, from tropical northeastern Australia, New Caledonia, Africa and Asia. The exact number of species has been revised from 3 to 8, according to The Plant List. [2]

Contents

Description

All of the species have simple, smooth-edged, leathery leaves and much-branched panicles of small white flowers with recurving petals and conspicuous stamens. The fruits are small drupes with a fleshly appendage on one side attached to the fruit, termed a pseudoaril.
The African species ( Apodytes dimidiata ) is grown for its attractive display of white blossom and red and black fruit, as well as for shade, screening and hedges. It is also grown in southern Africa for ornament and timber, and a bark preparation is used to drive out intestinal parasites.

Cultivation

It adapts readily to gardens in warm-temperate to tropical climates, though growth is not particularly fast and it can be kept to large shrub size. A deep fertile soil suits it best but it will grow in poorer soils. Propagate from fresh seed.

Apodytes dimidiata Apodytes dimidiata04.jpg
Apodytes dimidiata

Species

The original classification included only 3 species,[ citation needed ] but recently the genus was revised to include 8 species. [2]

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<i>Austrobaileya</i> Species of plant

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Thymelaeaceae

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<i>Lanaria</i>

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<i>Apodytes dimidiata</i> Species of tree

Apodytes dimidiata is a bushy tree with white flowers bearing a fragrance reminiscent of fresh coconut, and small black and red fruits. It is usually about 5 m tall, and it is indigenous to Southern Africa. The taxonomical family placement for this and other Apodytes was uncertain; it is now placed in the Metteniusaceae. Its English common name is in reference to the timber which is similar in appearance to that of the European pear tree of the northern hemisphere.

Families of Asparagales

The Asparagales are an order of plants, and on this page the structure of the order is used according to the APG III system. The order takes its name from the family Asparagaceae and is placed in the monocots. The order is clearly circumscribed on the basis of DNA sequence analysis, but is difficult to define morphologically, since its members are structurally diverse. The APG III system is used in World Checklist of Selected Plant Families from the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. With this circumscription, the order consists of 14 families with approximately 1120 genera and 26000 species.

The anthophytes are a grouping of plant taxa bearing flower-like reproductive structures. They were formerly thought to be a clade comprising plants bearing flower-like structures. The group contained the angiosperms - the extant flowering plants, such as roses and grasses - as well as the Gnetales and the extinct Bennettitales.

References

  1. Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2016). "An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG IV". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 181 (1): 1–20. doi: 10.1111/boj.12385 .
  2. 1 2 The Plant List