Garryaceae (gare-ee-AY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Evergreen shrubs and small trees
- Opposite leaves
- Dioecious, with male and female catkins
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
- Evergreen shrubs and small trees
- Leaves
- Opposite (2 leaves at each junction with stem) and simple (not divided into leaflets)
- Dark green to gray-green, leathery, ovate
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) a catkin (long hanging cluster of small, petalless, unisexual flowers)
- Male and female flowers on separate plants (dioecious)
- Ovary inferior (below the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit is a berry (a usually multi-seeded fruit with a fleshy ovary wall)
Notes
- Small family of plants, commonly known as silk tassels (or silktassels)
- Consists of 1 genus (Garrya) of 14 species found in temperate and subtropical regions of western United States, Central America, and the Caribbean
- Scientific name from the single genus Garrya, for Nicholas Garry (c. 1782-1856), deputy governor of the Hudson Bay Company, in honor of the aid he provided to David Douglas in his 1826 exploration of the Pacific Northwest
- Coast silk tassel (Garrya elliptica) is the only representative of this family 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.
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