Hamamelidaceae (redirected from witch-hazel family)

Hamamelidaceae [‚ha·mə‚mel·ə′dās·ē‚ē]

(botany)

A family of dicotyledonous trees or shrubs in the order Hamamelidales characterized by united carpels, alternate leaves, perfect or unisexual flowers, and free filaments.

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Hamamelidaceae 

a family of dicotyledons. Members of Hamamelidaceae are trees or, more often, bushes, usually with regular leaves and stipules. The flowers are small, unisexual or bisexual, gathered into thick capitate or spicate inflorescences. The ovary is half-inferior or almost inferior; sometimes it is superior. The fruit is a boll. There are approximately 25 genera and 110 species, mainly in hot and warm regions of East Asia, but also in the Atlantic regions of North and Central America; a few species are found in South Africa and in tropical Australia. In the Tertiary period, Hamamelidaceae were found in Europe, too. One species of Hamamelidaceae, Persian ironwood, grows wild in the USSR, in Eastern Transcaucasia (Talysh); more than ten species from five genera are cultivated. The best known are the North American (Hamamelis virginiana), the bark and leaves of which are used to prepare blood-clotting agents, and species of the genus Liquidambar (sweet gum tree), which yield aromatic wood, resins, and balsams.

REFERENCE

Takhtadzhian A. L. Sistema i filogeniia tsvetkovykh rastenii. Moscow-Leningrad, 1966. Pages 119-21.

M. E. KIRPICHNIKOV