Onagraceae (redirected from Evening primrose family)

Onagraceae [‚än·ə′grās·ē‚ē]

(botany)

A family of dicotyledonous plants in the order Myrtales characterized generally by an inferior ovary, axile placentation, twice as many stamens as petals, a four-nucleate embryo sac, and many ovules.

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Onagraceae 

a family of dicotyledonous plants. They are herbs, sometimes semishrubs and shrubs, and occasionally small trees. The flowers are solitary or in inflorescences (spicate, racemose, or panicled) with leaves, for the most part regular and perfect, usually tetramerous, and with the calyx tubes joined to the ovary. The fruit is a capsule or is nutlike; occasionally it is berry-like. There are about 20 genera, embracing more than 650 species, which are found predominantly in temperate and subtropical regions. In the USSR there are six genera (for example, Epilobium, Oenothera, Fuchsia, and Clarkia) including about 70 species; some of them are raised as ornamentals. Jussieua repens, which has three types of roots—feeding, floating, and respiratory—grows in stagnant water and swamps in tropical America.

REFERENCE

Takhtadzhian, A. L. Sistema i filogeniia tsvetkovykh rastenii. Moscow-Leningrad, 1966.