Schisandraceae

Abstract

[Extract] Dioecious, scrambling or twining aromatic woody lianes, glabrous. Without stipules. Leaves alternate, often distally clustered or in pseudowhorls, simple, petiolate; laminas often dotted with pellucid glands. Flowers axillary or cauliflorous, unisexual, actinomorphic; pedicels usually tapering distally; tepals imbricate, in 1 or more series, free, outermost and innermost tepals usually smaller and shorter than the middle ones. Male flowers: stamens free or connate, in a single whorl and aggregated into a subglobose head, filaments absent, anthers basifixed, latrorse to introrse, dehiscing longitudinally. Female flowers: ovary superior, unilocular, carpels free, spirally arranged. Fruit a head of aggregated fruitlets; fruitlets fleshy, closely adpressed (elsewhere separated at maturity), not dehiscent. Seeds laterally flattened; testa smooth, hard; endosperm copious, oily.

Distribution. Two genera, Kadsura (16 species) and Schisandra Blume (23 species), with a disjunct distribution. Most species in E and SE Asia, distributed from E India and Sri Lanka to Indo-China, China, Russia (Siberia), Korea, Japan, Taiwan to W Malesia. In Peninsular Malaysia, represented by four species of Kadsura.

Ecology. Most species are found in tropical forest, with a few in cool temperate forest. In Malesia, from lowland to montane forest to 2400m altitude.

Taxonomy. Schisandraceae and Illiciaceae are here recognised as separate families, based on differences in habit, flower sexuality, receptacle structure, carpel arrangement and fruit type (Heywood, 2007). For a more detailed discussion, see Illiciaceae (p.137).