Grossulariaceae

Abstract

Shrubs, sometimes dioecious, 0.1–7 m tall, erect, prostrate or lianescent with regular and very short internodes, unarmed or with simple or ternate nodal and/or simple internodal spines, stem initially with white pith, terete, bark dark brown to black, later often exfoliating in strips; horizontal underground stems often present; indumentum of subsessile and/or unicellular and pluriseriate, glandular or eglandular trichomes on young shoots, leaves, flowers and fruits. Leaves deciduous or evergreen, alternate, petiolate, rarely subsessile; stipules usually dry, brown and fimbriate; bud scales dry and brown, rarely membranaceous, usually pubescent and/or glandular; lamina ovate to subcircular, rarely flabellate, membranaceous to coriaceous, 0.5–25 cm in diameter, base cuneate to deeply cordate, usually trilobate, or subpalmately lobed, rarely undivided; margin irregularly lobulate and coarsely serrate with hydathode teeth, rarely subentire, usually pubescent at least abaxially, sometimes densely covered with resin orwax; venationpalmatewithusuallythreemajor veins; ptyxis mostly plicate, rarely convolute. Inflorescences usually on short shoots, racemose, pendulous, or rarely erect, (1-)5-50-flowered, axis sometimes with very short, sometimes distally contracted and in florescence appearing corymbose, each flower with a pubescent and often fimbriate bract and usually two smaller prophylls, rarely with a single, amplexicaul prophyll. Flowers hermaphroditic or unisexual, chasmogamous, proterandric or protogynous, erect or pendulous, actinomorphic, (4)5-merous; hypanthiumdistinct, patelliform to long-cylindrical and usually persistent in fruit; calyx lobes usually oblong-acuminate, erect, spreading or reflexed, rarely erect with reflexed apex, green, white, yellow or red; petals distinct, rarely absent, erect or spreading, margin entire, ovate or oblong with narrowed base, rarely filiformor flabellate, flat or sometimes involute, membranaceous, green, white, yellow or red, aestivation apert; androecium haplostemonous, stamens antesepalous, all fertile or all staminodial; filaments filiform, insertion episepalous; anthers included or long-exserted, basifixed, with 4 microsporangia; connective undifferentiated or with distal nectary, staminodia undifferentiated with poorly developed thecae, or fully developed thecae but without viable pollen; nectary a well-developed, often 5-lobed disc; ovary in hermaphroditic and female flowers well developed, completely inferior to 1/3 superior, conical to globose, glabrous to densely glandularand/or pubescent, with 2 parietal, slightly intrusive placentae, in male flowers very small, undifferentiated or with poorly developed ovules; style conical to filiformwith two stigmatic branches and two papillose stigmas, included or exserted, basally often densely pubescent; ovules numerous, anatropous, bitegmic, crassinucellar with well-developed chalazal haustoria. Fruit a soft berry crowned with the persistent perianth, often covered with unicellular or glandular trichomes, yellow, orange, red, black, rarely white and/or covered with waxy bloom, acidic or insipid; seeds (3-)10 -60, with outer mucilaginous layer and a hard, brown to black seed coat; embryo small, straight, embedded in copious starch-free, oily endosperm; seedlings with 2 ovate to elliptical cotyledons, these apically emarginate with midvein ending in hydathode tooth, often pubescent and glandular.