Rhamnaceae (ram-NA-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Small trees or woody shrubs
- Small numerous flowers in tight clusters
- Simple leaves with curved, pinnate veins
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Usually small trees or woody shrubs
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets)
- Veins are curved and pinnate (arranged along a common axis like a feather)
- Usually alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
- Spines, modified from leaves, occur in many genera
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) in many forms
- Radially symmetrical, small to tiny, and numerous, usually in dense clusters
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts) or partly inferior (partly below the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit is a drupe (a fleshy fruit with usually 1 seed in a hard inner shell — a stone fruit) or capsule (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity)
Notes
- Approximately 950 species worldwide
- Includes buckbrush, redberry, and coffeeberry
- Scientific name from the genus Rhamnus, from the Greek for “buckthorn”
- Represented by 4 species at Edgewood
General References
Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.
Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.
Charters, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.
Charters, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.
Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.
Elpel, T.J. 2013. Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, Pony, Montana.
Flora of North America. efloras.org.
Harris, J.G., and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.
Keator, G. 2009. California Plant Families. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.
Native American Ethnobotany DB.
Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
