Mezereum Family
Thymelaeaceae (thim-e-le-A-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Usually shrubs
- Flexible stems with shiny bark
- Flower a tube, funnel, or bell
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
- Most often shrubs; can be trees or vines
- Stems
- Distinctly flexible
- Shiny bark
- Raised leaf-attachment scars
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets) and entire (with smooth margins)
- Usually alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) usually a cluster at the leaf axil (branching point)
- Usually bisexual flower, with tube, funnel or bell shape
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit usually a single-seeded berry (a usually multi-seeded fruit with a fleshy ovary wall), often mistaken for a drupe (a fleshy fruit with usually 1 seed in a hard inner shell — a stone fruit)
Notes
- Approximately 750 species worldwide
- Includes ornamental plants (e.g. daphne)
- Many species are poisonous and have an unpleasant odor
- Most species pollinated by butterflies and other long-tongued insects
- Scientific name from the included Mediterranean
genus Thymelaea, from the Greek for “thyme” and “olive,”
referring to the thyme-like foliage and the small olive-like fruits of that genus - Common name from the shrub Daphne mezereum, native to Eurasia
- Ambiguous, complex flower parts have made classification of species challenging
- Western leatherwood (Dirca occidentalis) is the only representative of this family in Edgewood
Specific References
Thymelaea hirsuta. 2005-2019. Flowers in Israel. Ed. Martha Modzelevich.
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