Melicytus
Credits
This is a placeholder entry.
Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles
Recommended citation
'Melicytus' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Family
- Violaceae
Common Names
- Shrubby Violets
Editorial Note
Some species now included in Melicytus were treated by Bean under the genus Hymenanthera. We supply new text below, pending a full, revised treatment, to be provided when funding is available. If you would like to sponsor the account of this genus please write to editor@treesandshrubsonline.org
Evergreen or nearly evergreen trees or shrubs, hermaphrodite or dioecious. Leaves alternate or in fascicles, with minute stipules. Flowers small, nearly actinomorphic, solitary or in fascicles, axillary and/or on branchlets below leaves; calyx 5-lobed or toothed, or with sepals united only at the base; petals 5; anthers 5, free or united by toothed membrane; nectariferous scale or sac dorsal; style 2–6-fid, or stigma subsessile, lobed. Fruit a berry. Allan 1961
A genus of nineteen species – the shrubby violets – native to Australia and New Zealand. It formerly consisted of five New Zealand endemics and one other species extending into the southwest Pacific, but has been enlarged by the gradual inclusion of the whole of the former genus Hymenanthera, on evolutionary (sex-based) and cytological grounds (Beuzenberg 1961).
The two genera had traditionally been separated on the basis of ovule number (one per carpel in Hymenanthera, multiple in Melicytus s.s.), free or connate anthers (free in all but one species of Melicytus s.s.), and breeding system (Hymenanthera included some hermaphrodite species), though as Beuzenberg (1961) noted, these characters were variable and overlapping across the genera, and apparently stable, intergeneric hybrids could be produced. While the amalgamation of Melicytus and Hymenanthera is generally accepted, recent reseach (Mitchell et al. 2009) indicates two distinct clades within Melicytus sensu lato, apparently corresponding to the two genera as formerly circumscribed; should these be shown to be monophyletic, there may be grounds for recognising discrete taxa at subgeneric rank, or even segregate genera (Garnock-Jones 2014).
