''Meiocarpidium'' is a genus of

plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...

in the family

Annonaceae The Annonaceae are a Family (biology), family of flowering plants consisting of trees, shrubs, or rarely lianas commonly known as the custard apple family or soursop family. With 108 accepted genera and about 2400 known species, it is the largest ...

. It is distributed in

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

, The

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to Central African Republic–Chad border, the north, Sudan to Central African Republic–Sudan border, the northeast, South Sudan to Central ...

, The

Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo), is a country located on the western coast of Central ...

, and

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

Adolf Engler Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler (25 March 1844 – 10 October 1930) was a German botanist. He is notable for his work on plant taxonomy and phytogeography, such as ''Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien'' (''The Natural Plant Families''), edited with K ...

and

Ludwig Diels Friedrich Ludwig Emil Diels (24 September 1874 – 30 November 1945) was a German botanist. Diels was born in Hamburg, the son of the classical scholar Hermann Alexander Diels. From 1900 to 1902 he traveled together with Ernst Georg Pritzel thro ...

, the German botanists who first

formally described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...

the genus, named it after the small number (Latinized form of Greek -, meio-) of carpels in the flowers.

Description

Meiocarpidium have solitary

hermaphroditic A hermaphrodite () is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic. The individuals of many ...

flowers. Their

sepals A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 Etymology The term ''sepalum'' ...

have 3 small folds. Their flowers have 6 petals arranged in two rows of three with the interior a little bigger than the exterior. The flowers' receptacles are slightly convex. Their flowers have numerous

stamen The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filament ...

. Their flowers have 3-5

carpels Gynoecium (; ; : gynoecia) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ...

with

ovule In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: the ''integument'', forming its outer layer, the ''nucellus'' (or remnant of the sporangium, megasporangium), ...

s in two ventral rows. Their seeds are brown, oval and are rounded on one side, but angular on the other.

Species

It is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus consisting of: * '' Meiocarpidium lepidotum'' (Oliv.) Engl. & Diels

References

{{Authority control Annonaceae Annonaceae genera Flora of Cameroon Flora of the Central African Republic Flora of the Republic of the Congo Flora of Gabon Monotypic Magnoliales genera Plants described in 1900 Taxa named by Adolf Engler Taxa named by Ludwig Diels