SAPOTACEAE

Current Angiosperm Phylogeny Group Tree

for Flowering Plants

Sapotaceae,ERICALES

ERICALES

SAPOTACEAE•white latex•close-set secondaries•malpighian hairs•little white flowers•connate corollas with appendages•stamens adnate•stamens = and opposite OR•several times corolla lobes•potato-skin fruits

SAPOTACEAE (EBENALES, ASTERIDS)

NUMBERS: 70 Genera, 800 species

GEOGRAPHY: tropical

HABITAT: understory and canopy trees in wetter forests

ASTERID characters:

ERICALES CHARACTERS: leaves alternate, connate petals, stamens ca twice the

petals, adnate to petals, placentation axile

CHARACTERS DIAGNOSTIC OF FAMILY:

Habit woody

Latex present, always white

Terminal Buds: small, naked

Indument of two-branched (malpighian) hairs, one branch reduced (often rusty to gold)

Leaves simple, alternate, often with close-set, parallel secondary veins

Flowers small, radially symmetrical, white

Corolla connate, sometimes with paired appendages

Androecium: stamens = and opposite (or to 6x) corolla lobes, includes a whorl of petaloid

staminodes

Fruit large, fleshy; seed large, dark, and shiny with a large, excavated hilum; generally

edible

There is in addition a general tendency to increase in the numbers of parts beyond five

and to a duplication of whorls, especially the sepals

Manilkara

Pouteria sapota, Belize

Chrysophyllum, Belize

Chrysophyllum

Dipholis, Florida

Mimusops

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Gutta percha - from Palaquium of SE Asia

Cable insulation, golf-ball cores, etc

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Isoprene structure of the latex

Omphalocarpum The fruit is dispersed

by elephants, which are attracted to the tree by the smell of garlic. They are the only animals capable of crushing the thick shell. But the seeds, which are protected by hard nodules on the inner side of the shell, remain unharmed. In other parts of Africa where poaching has eliminated elephants, the trees cannot reproduce.

Micropholis seeds, passed by monkeys, are buried by dung beetles with the feces. Seed survival is increased.