Melia
Content
Description
Trees, occasionally flowering precociously as shrublets.
Leaves 2(–3)-pinnate.
Inflorescence thyrsoid, axillary.
Flowers hermaphrodite and male on same tree (polygamous).
Petals 5 (6), free, imbricate.
Staminal tube narrowly cylin- drical, slightly expanded at mouth, 10- (or 12-)ribbed, with 10 or 12 truncate, bifid or 4-fid filiform lobes; anthers 10 (12), inserted at margin of or just within tube, alternat- ing with or opposite lobes.
Ovary 4–8-locular, each locule with 2 superposed ovules; stylehead capitate to coroniform with 4–8 short, erect or incurved stigmatic lobes.
Seed oblong, laterally compressed; testa leathery, sometimes slightly swollen and fleshy around hilum; embryo embedded in oily endosperm; cotyledons flat.
Distribution
Africa, Indomalesia present
One species in Indomalesia with one or possibly two closely allied ones in south tropical Africa. Forms of the Indomalesian species are widely cultivated and naturalized throughout the warm parts of the world.Indomalesia
Notes
For details of embryology, see
As noted by Corner , the inflorescences of cultivated Melia azedarach in Malaya are short shoots with terminal buds. The true inflorescences are borne in the axils of rudimentary leaves and after fruit abscission, the terminal bud may grow out into a leafy shoot. Similar short shoots are known to bear the inflorescences in Chisocheton (q.v.) while in South American species of Guarea, nota- bly G. kunthiana A. Juss. , there being no sign of rudimentary leaves, the shoots are termed indeterminate inflorescences which grow for some months, bearing ripe fruits at the base and young flowers at the apex, as figured by Pennington (op. cit. t. 59) for G. pubescens (Rich.) A. Juss.