Chloranthales

▪ plant order

      order of flowering plants, a basal branch of the angiosperm tree, consisting of 1 family, Chloranthaceae, with 4 genera (Ascarina, Chloranthus, Hedyosmum, and Sarcandra) and about 75 species. Chloranthaceae appears very early in the flowering plant fossil record, but its relationships to other basal flowering plant groups remain somewhat unclear.

      Chloranthaceae are soft-wooded aromatic shrubs and trees with opposite saw-toothed leaves and swollen nodes. The flowers are very small, often unisexual, and usually lack petals or tepals, although they are sometimes subtended by leaflike bracts. The flowers have either 1–5 stamens or a single carpel that develops into a drupe.

      Chloranthaceae is pantropical but does not occur on the African continent (however, it does occur on the nearby island of Madagascar). Species of the genus Chloranthus have been used as a tea and to combat fevers, and Sarcandra glabra is cultivated as an ornamental.

Paul E. Berry

 

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