Families

Palmae (Arecaceae)

The Palmae is a family chiefly of tropical trees and shrubs and vines usually having a tall columnar trunk bearing a crown of very large leaves; coextensive with the order Palmales.  It comprised of about 212 genera and 2780 species.  The family as a whole contains a great deal of diversity, but much less within the natural groups now recognized.  Since most palm trees grow in the shade of tropical forests until they get tall enough to reach the direct rays of the sun, they tolerate relatively low indoor light for many years.  Palms may be monoecious or dioecious.  Female plants are required for fruits on those that have showy fruits.  Many palms become large with age and outgrow their location but make attractive, manageable house plants for several years.  Edible palms produce coconut, dates and palm oil and they have numerous uses in and around the home and market in the tropics.

Pinaceae

The Pinaceae is a family of trees and a few shrubs in the order Pinales, comprised of 200 species and 9 genera. This is the largest family of gymnosperms. Leaves are needles, borne singly, or in fascicles on short shoots, spirally arranged on stem, evergreen in nearly all species.  All plant parts resinous and aromatic, usually with sticky resin exuding from cuts in needles or stem. Monoecious with small pollen (male) cones and larger seed (female) cones with spirally arranged scales.

Piperaceae

This tropical family of small trees, shrubs and woody climbers composed of about 5 genera and 2000 species.  Its principal genus, Piper, yields the common condiment pepper.  The leaves are characteristically alternate, simple, entire, dotted with glands containing pungent aromatic oil, and have winged petioles.  The flowers are tiny, bisexual or unisexual, borne in racemes or spikes which are usually leaf-opposed.  The fruit is a fleshy single seeded drupe, often sunk into the inflorescence axis or fused with the bracts.

Pittosporaceae

This is a family of 9 genera and 200-240 species of trees, shrubs, or vine-like plants, in the order Rosales. The leaves are evergreen and leathery, typically entire, and without stipules.  These are bisexual, rarely tending towards unisexuality and poloygamy (male, female and bisexual on the same plant) and regular.  The fruit is a loculicidal capsule or berry; the seeds are mostly numerous, sometimes  winged, often smeared with a brownish resin-like mucilage.  The bark is traversed by resin-containing canals.

Plumbaginaceae

The Plumbaginaceae is a medium-sized family of annual or perennial herbs and shrubs or climbers, many of which are cultivated as garden ornamentals.  It contains some 560 species in 10 genera.  The leaves are either arranged in a basal rosette or alternately on the aerial branched stems.  They are simple, glandular and without stipules.  The flowers are bisexual and regular.  The fruit is usually enclosed by the calyx and is normally indehiscent.  The seed contains a straight embryo surrounded by mealy endosperm.

Podocarpaceae

The Podocarpaceae is a family of evergreen shrubs or trees, usually with straight trunk and more or less horizontal branches. It contains 18 genera and 173 species.  The leaves are usually spirally arranged, sometimes opposite, scale-like, needle-like, or more apart, flat and leaf-like, linear to lanceolate. The Plants are monoecious or dioecious. Pollen cones usually catkin-like; stamens numerous, close together, imbricate, each with 2 sporangia; pollen grains usually winged. Seeds completely covered by a fleshy structure referred to as an epimatium, wingless.

Proteaceae

The Proteaceae is one of the most prominent families of the Southern Hemisphere.  It consists of 62 genera and over 1000 species of trees and shrubs.  The leaves are alternate, entire or divided, without stipules, leathery and often hairy to some extent.  The flowers are irregular and bourne in sometimes showy racemes, spikes or heads with a ring of bracts. The fruit is a fascicle, drupe or nut.  The seeds are often winged and have no endosperm.

 Punicaceae

The Punicaceae is a small family of trees of shrubs or trees contains only one genus (Punica) and two species.  Leaves are alternate to opposite (sometimes crowded at the tips of the twigs); petiolate; non-sheathing; not gland-dotted; simple.  Flowers are regular; cyclic; polycyclic (by virtue of the androecium).  Fruit is fleshy; indehiscent; a berry (with 2–3 layers of locules, and a leathery rind representing the hypanthium, crowned by the persistent calyx, the seeds embedded in pulp derived from the outer layers of the testas).  Seeds have no endosperm and have a straight embryo.