Uittienia
Content
Description
Trees.
Leaves 1-foliolate, petiolate, thickened at basal end; petiolules very short, wrinkled.
Stipules minute, linear, caducous.
Inflorescences axillary, fascicled short thyrses.
Stamens 5(-7), all fertile, rarely 1-3 smaller; filaments free; anthers basifixed, uniform, ovoid, dehiscing lengthwise.
Ovary stipitate, terete or slightly ellipsoid, slightly hairy, 1-ovuled; style filiform, slightly hairy; stigma obscure.
Taxonomy
The present genus was reduced to Dialium as a subgenus by Steyaert (l.c.). Rojo (l.c.), after a comprehensive study of the genus Dialium, excluded the genus Uittienia from Dialium and reinstated it as a monotypic genus within the same subtribe (i.e. tribe Cassieae subtribe Dialiinae Irwin & Barneby).
According to Rojo (l.c.: 100) the fruit of Dialium "has a thin crustaceous exocarp which is usually hairy and easily crushed or sometimes detached from the adjacent meso- carp," while the fruit of Uittienia "does not have a crustaceous exocarp but instead has a thick (c. 4-5 mm) and hard pericarp which when dry is uncrushable by hardest press between two hands." See Rojo's figures 2.18b and 3.1 f/g.
According to Rojo (l.c.: 100) the fruit of Dialium "has a thin crustaceous exocarp which is usually hairy and easily crushed or sometimes detached from the adjacent meso- carp," while the fruit of Uittienia "does not have a crustaceous exocarp but instead has a thick (c. 4-5 mm) and hard pericarp which when dry is uncrushable by hardest press between two hands." See Rojo's figures 2.18b and 3.1 f/g.