The Penaeaceae are a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

, leathery-leaved shrubs and small trees, native to

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The family has 29

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

in 9

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards)
Penaeaceae.Angiosperm Phylogeny Website.
Version 12, July 2012 nd more or less continuously updated since Accessed online: 5 June 2013. The family Penaeaceae was expanded under the

APG III system The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy being developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG). Published in 2009, it was superseded in 2016 by a f ...

of classification with the inclusion of the genera '' Olinia'' (formerly in the monogeneric Oliniaceae) and the single species from the genus ''

Rhynchocalyx ''Rhynchocalyx lawsonioides'', the false-waterberry, is a small flowering tree, the sole species of the genus ''Rhynchocalyx''. It had also previously been regarded as the only species in the monogeneric family Rhynchocalycaceae but is now includ ...

'' (formerly in the monogeneric Rhynchocalycaceae).

References

Myrtales families {{Myrtales-stub