Spathiostemon
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''Spathiostemon'' is a
genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
of trees in the
Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae (), the spurge family, is a large family of flowering plants. In English, they are also commonly called euphorbias, which is also the name of Euphorbia, the type genus of the family. Most spurges, such as ''Euphorbia paralias'', ar ...
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 ...
. It is native to the
Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about . History The first inhabitants of the archipela ...
,
New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...
,
Wallacea Wallacea is a biogeography, biogeographical designation for a group of mainly list of islands of Indonesia, Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australia (continent), Australian continental shelf, continental ...
and
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...
. The trees grow between 10 and 20m tall, often in secondary forest. The wood is sometimes used.


Description

The two species occur as trees or shrubs up to 20m tall. They are
monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system comparable with gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy, and contras ...
, that is individual trees have both female and male flowers though the sexes flower at different times. Leaves are spirally arranged and simple in form, papery. Flowers do not have petals. Woody thin-walled capsules are slightly lobed, glabrous (hairless) and either smooth or spiny. There are usually 2-3 seeds per fruit, obovoid (rounded at both ends), and slightly triangular in cross/transverse section. The genus is distinguished from other Malesian Euphorbiaceae by the following traits: if present the latex is not obvious; hairs are present; pistillate (female) flowers have apically split stigmas; the male (staminate) flowers have stamens that split into two equal branches, arising from 4‒7 androphores/stalks, with ultimately more than 100 stamens.


History

Carl Ludwig Blume Charles Ludwig de Blume or Karl Ludwig von Blume (9 June 1796 – 3 February 1862) was a German-Dutch botanist and entomologist who spent most of his professional life in the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. As deputy director of agricul ...
, botanist, was born in
Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
, but mainly worked in the Netherlands and the
Netherlands East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
. He first described ''Spathiostemon'' as a genus in 1826 in the journal ''Bijdragen tot de Flora van Nederlandsch Indie''.


Species

* ''
Spathiostemon javensis ''Spathiostemon javensis'' is a plant that can grow as a shrub or a tree in the tribe Acalypheae of the family Euphorbiaceae. It is native to the region from the Bismarck Archipelago to New Guinea, Wallacea and into Southeast Asia. It is often co ...
'' Blume - Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, Maluku, Lesser Sunda Islands, Sulawesi, Philippines, Jawa, Borneo, and Peninsular Malaysia * '' Spathiostemon moniliformis''
Airy Shaw Herbert Kenneth Airy Shaw (7 April 1902 – 19 August 1985) was a notable English botanist and classicist. He worked at Kew Gardens, as was an expert on tropical Asian botany and on entomology. The genus '' Airyantha'' is named for him. Life A ...
- Southern Thailand


Formerly included

* ''Spathiostemon forbesii'' ( S.Moore) Airy Shaw - '' Clonostylis forbesii'' S.Moore * ''Spathiostemon salicinus'' (
Hassk. Justus Carl Hasskarl (6 December 1811 – 5 January 1894) was a German explorer and botanist specializing in pteridophytes, bryophytes and spermatophytes. Biography Justus Carl Hasskarl was born in Kassel in the Kingdom of Westphalia. In ...
) Hassk.
- ''
Homonoia riparia ''Homonoia riparia'' is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, ''Euphorbiaceae''. Distribution It is a mangrove species that is native to the Andaman Islands, Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, South-Central and Southeast China, ...
'' Lour.


References

Euphorbiaceae genera {{Euphorbiaceae-stub