| Medium to large trees, sometimees treelets mature at 3-5 m, stipules absent, leaves aromatic with ethereal oils, alternate, spiraled, margin entire, venation pinnate (3-veined in Cinnamomum), pubescent or glabrous; flowers in branched axillary and terminal, usually many-flowered inflorescences, mostly bisexual (some Ocotea species dioecious), small (2-7 mm long), with 2 whorls of tepals, stamens 3-12 (mostly 9 in our area) each with 2 (Beilschmiedia) or 4 pollen-storage pockets that dehisce by upward-curling valves (opening like a sardine can), usually with orange or yellow subglobose nectar glands around the bases of the 3 inner stamens, 3 peg-like staminodes present or not next to the ovary, the ovary superior, but appearing half inferior because of the surrounding nectar glands and stamen filaments, one ovule, style simple, stigma simple to capitate; fruit a fleshy, 1-seeded drupe-like berry, the seed with a papery (most species) or semi-hard exocarp (Beilschmiedia), mostly dispersed by birds or monkeys (some Persea), most with the fruit black and subtended by a red cupule formed by the expanded receptacle (but a simple woody pedicel in Beilschmiedia and Persea). |
