WINTERACEAE - Winter's Bark Family
Drimys winteri
Trees or shrubs
Leaves alternate, simple, entire, no stipules
Leaf venation relatively unorganized
Flowers in fasicles or cymes
Insect-pollinated
Fruit indehiscent, berrylike, seed with abundant endosperm
The Winteraceae shares several characteristics with early
angiosperms
1. Vessel-less wood
2. Undifferentiated stamens - no filaments
3. Style-less unsealed carpels with long stigmatic surface and
marginal placentation
4 genera, 100 species
Economic importance - Horticultural and medicinal
(Drimysˆ)
Diagnostic charactersitics - Woody, undifferentiated stamens,
marginal placentation, dotting of leaves from plugging of stomata
with wax.
