Chaenomeles Lindley(木瓜属)
Shrubs, subshrubs, or small trees, deciduous or evergreen, sometimes with thorny branches; buds small, with 2 exposed scales. Leaves simple, alternate, shortly petiolate, stipulate, herbaceous, margin serrate or crenate. Flowers solitary or fascicled, precocious or coetaneous. Sepals 5, caducous, margin entire or serrate. Petals 5. Stamens 20 or more, 2-whorled. Ovary 5-loculed, with many ovules per locule, 2-seriate; styles 2-5, connate at base. Fruit a pome, large, many seeded, often with persistent incurved styles; seed brown, seed coat leathery, albumen absent.
About five species: E Asia; five species (three endemic) in China.
|