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• Taxonomy
• Physical Description
• Distribution
• Growth
• Similar Species
• Bibliography
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Taxonomy

Physical Description

Family Caricaceae:

Trees small, palmlike, or shrubs, rarely vines, often prickly, monoecious, dioecious, andromonoecious, gynomonoecious, or polygamomonoecious. Stem stout, unbranched, rarely branched, with a terminal cluster of leaves, with flowing, latexlike exudate. Leaves alternate, long petiolate, usually estipulate, large; stipules when present, spiny; leaf blade palmate or palmatifid, rarely entire or pinnatifid. Inflorescences axillary; male flowers aggregated in cymose panicles; female flowers usually solitary or aggregated in corymbose cymes, large. Calyx 5-lobed; lobes small, connate basally. Corolla 5-lobed; tube long in male flowers, short in female flowers. Stamens 5 or 10, 1- or 2-whorled, inserted in throat of corolla tube; filaments free, connate basally; anthers introrse, tetrasporangiate, dehiscing via longitudinal slits. Gynoecium in male flowers vestigial, or absent; in female flowers syncarpous, synovarious to synstylovarious; ovary superior, 1- or 5-loculed, placentation when 1-loculed parietal (placentas ± deeply intruded) or laminar-dispersed, when 5-loculed axile; ovules numerous, anatropous, bitegmic; styles 1 or 5, free to partly joined, apical; stigmas 5, papillate, dry. Fruit large, fleshy, indehiscent berry. Seeds numerous, surrounded by mucilage; endosperm oily; embryo well differentiated; cotyledons 2, broad, flat. n = 9.

Six genera and 34 species: Central and South America, one genus of two species (Cylicomorpha Urban) in tropical Africa, one genus (Carica) widely introduced and cultivated in tropical areas of the world, including China.^[1]

Habit: Evergreen.

Flowers: Bloom Period: January, February, March. • Flower Color: pale green

Distribution

Growth

Sunlight: Sun Exposure: Full Sun.

Similar Species

Members of the genus Jacaratia:

There are approximately 16 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus: J. boliviana · J. chocoensis · J. corumbensis · J. costaricensis · J. digitata · J. dodecaphylla · J. dodecaphylla f. longiflora · J. dodecaphylla var. lucida · J. dolichaula · J. hassleriana · J. heptaphylla · J. heptaphylla f. inermis · J. mexicana · J. solmsii · J. spinosa (Jacaratia) · J. spinosa var. digitata

Bibliography

• Chen Peishan. 1999. Caricaceae. In: Ku Tsuechih, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 52(1): 121-122.

More Info

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Notes

Contributors:

• Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Accessed November 11, 2007. http://www.gbif.org Mediated distribution data from 5 providers.

Data Sources:

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal November 11, 2007:

• Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program
• Herbarium of the University of Aarhus, The AAU Herbarium Database
• Herbier de la Guyane, Herbier de la Guyane
• Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad
• , Biodiversidad de Costa Rica
• Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri Botanical Garden

Identifiers:

• Global Biodiversity Information Facility Taxonkey: 15332395
• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 746951

Footnotes:

1. Yinzheng Wang & Nicholas J. Turland "Caricaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 13 Page 150. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org.