Tetracentron

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Tetracentron' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/tetracentron/). Accessed 2023-03-21.

Family

Tetracentraceae

Species in genus

Tetracentron sinense

Glossary

morphology: The visible form of an organism.
ovary: Lowest part of the carpel containing the ovules; later developing into the fruit.
bisexual: See hermaphrodite.
capsule: Dry dehiscent fruit; formed from syncarpous ovary.
family: A group of genera more closely related to each other than to genera in other families. Names of families are identified by the suffix ‘-aceae’ (e.g. Myrtaceae) with a few traditional exceptions (e.g. Leguminosae).
inflorescence: Flower-bearing part of a plant; arrangement of flowers on the floral axis.
ovary: Lowest part of the carpel containing the ovules; later developing into the fruit.
stigma: (in a flower) The part of the carpel that receives pollen and on which it germinates. May be at the tip of a short or long style or may be reduced to a stigmatic surface at the apex of the ovary.
xylem: Vascular tissue carrying water and minerals from roots.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Tetracentron' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/tetracentron/). Accessed 2023-03-21.

Tetracentron sinense bark on the UK & Ireland champion tree for girth, grown from Wilson 2158 at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. October 2021. Image Tom Christian.

New text is being prepared for this genus, with publication expected early in 2023.

Tetracentron is the only genus of its family, and itself contains a single species. The family is a very ancient one, most closely allied to the Trochodendraceae, also consisting of a single genus and species (see Trochodendron). Although unalike in foliage and inflorescence, the two families have several essential characters in common, one of the most remarkable being the structure of the water-conducting tissues (xylem), which are made up, not of vessels, as in most flowering plants, but of tracheids, resembling those of the conifers but rather more primitive in form. For the foliage of Tetracentron, see below. The flowers are grouped in clusters of four on pendulous spikes and are bisexual. Sepals four, imbricated. Petals none. Stamens four. Ovary superior, composed of four united carpels. Styles four, with a minute stigma, at first terminal and erect but becoming recurved and then apparently borne at the base of the ovary. Fruit a loculicidal capsule, containing a few oily seeds.

See further in: Smith, A. C., ‘A taxonomic review of Trochodendron and Tetracentron’, Journ. Arn. Arb., Vol. 26 (1945), pp. 123–42; and Bailey, I. W., and Nast, C. G., ‘Morphology and relationships of Trochodendron and Tetracentron’, ibid., pp. 143–54 and 267–76; Takhtajan, A., Flowering Plants. Origin and Dispersal (1969), translated from the Russian by C. Jeffrey, pp. 52, 94.