Description
Trees or shrubs usually dioecious, sometimes monoecious. They are evergreen, sometimes deciduous, ericales with leaves alternate or rarely opposite, simple, whole, stipules absent, more or less leathery some times lauroid. Often have two-ranked leaves without teeth. The leaves have flat, dark-coloured glands on the lower surface. The roots and bark have a black color too. They have extrafloral nectaries on abaxial leaf surfaces, a persistent calyx, biovulate carpels with pendulous ovules, and a similar wood anatomy. Flowers are unisexual, sometimes hermaphrodite. Inflorescence cymose or solitary flowers, axillary flowers actinomorphics. The flowers show considerable variability but mostly actinomorphic, tetramerous or pentamerous in general. When there are female flowers, with staminodes. The corolla gamopetalous and urceolate. Fruit a juicy or leathery berry, sometimes a capsule. A persistent calyx on the fruits is characteristic of the family. The fruits remain on the tree after the leaves fall, giving the trees a special look. The fruits are of high nutritional value. Furthermore, are rich in vitamins and tannins, the seed dispersal is by vertebrates as reptils, mammals and birds.
Read more about this topic: Ebenaceae
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