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External links:     Angiosperms > Eudicots >  Superrosids > Malvids > Myrtaceae

Wikipedia links:       Angiosperms > Eudicots > Rosids  >  Myrtaceae 

Other links:     

Subfamilies and tribes:  

Subfamily Psiloxyloideae

• tribe Psiloxyleae                  Mauritius , Reunion                                                                                                                         1 species

•  tribe Heteropyxideae       Southern Africa                                                                                                                                 3 species

Subfamily Myrtoideae

• tribe Xanthostemoneae           Australia, New Caledonia, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Philippines

• tribe Lophostemoneae            Australia, Sulawesi, Maluku, Borneo, New Guinea, 

• tribe Osbornieae                         Australia, Borneo, Philippines                                                                      1 species  (mangrove)

• tribe Melaleuceae                       Australia (centre of diversity), SE Asia, Oceania          

• tribe Kanieae                                 Australia (centre of diversity), SE Asia, Oceania    

• tribe Backhousieae                    Australia                                                                                                                                           13 species

• tribe Metrosidereae                   Mainly New Zealand, New Guinea, Pacific Islands                                                  60 species

• tribe Tristanieae                           SE Asia, Oceania (including Australia)                                  

• tribe Syzygieae                            Africa, Madagascar, through S Asia , Pacific (incl. Australia, Malaysia)   1200 species (52 in Australia with fleshy fruits)

• tribe Myrteae                                 3 genera & 22 species in Australia           Includes most of the species with fleshy fruits

• tribe Eucalypteae                      Australia, S Asia, Oceania                                                                                                    ~900 species

• tribe Syncarpieae                      Australia                                                                                             small group of (turpentine) trees

• tribe Lindsayomyrteae           Australia, New Guinea, New Britain                                               1 species (Daintree penda)

• tribe Leptospermeae               SE Asia, Oceania (esp. Australia)       

• tribe Chamelaucieae               Australia (mainly), New Caledonia, SE Asia 

Start years:

Cretaceous       145 mya Eocene                   56 mya Miocene                23 mya

Paleocene            66 mya Oligocene             34 mya Pliocene                   5 mya

EXAMPLES:

Beaufortia

Chamelaucium

Kunzea

Leptospermum

Melaleuca

Sannantha

Syzygium  turning hearts

Thryptomene

Verticordia  turner of hearts Feather Flowers

Australian Myrtaceae - based on Flora in Australia (https://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/FFPA/key/FFPA/Media/Html/Myrtaceae.htm#:~:text=Characteristic%20features%20of%20the%20family,dense%2C%20showy%20heads%20or%20spikes)

• This is one of the most characteristic Australian families, providing the dominant species in most Australian vegetation communities except treeless areas, rainforests and those communities of arid and semi-arid regions dominated instead by Acacia (Mimosaceae)

• There are two broad centres of diversity, one in the wetter rainforests of the east and north-east and another in sclerophyllous heath and shrublands on poor soils of the south-west and south-east. Many genera are endemic to one or other of these broad regions.

• Characteristic features of the family Myrtaceae in Australia include:

  1. trees or shrubs with opposite or alternate, entire leaves, usually with translucent oil glands

  2. flowers usually relatively small but sometimes aggregated into dense, showy heads or spikes

  3. petals 4 or 5, free, white, pink to red or yellow, sometimes reduced or absent, often less prominent than the stamens which may be numerous and brightly coloured

  4. ovary inferior (enclosed in a fleshy hypanthium-tube), developing into a capsule which opens by radial splits, or a fleshy drupe or berry

• Description

• Evergreen, deciduous or semi-deciduous trees or shrubs

• Stems unarmed or rarely with thorns or spines arising from the leaf axils; internodes terete or distinctly angular

• Vegetative reproduction absent, or by rhizomes, stolons or root suckers. Internal secretions not obvious or of coloured sap, essential oils or resin

• Plants glabrous, or with simple, glandular or non-glandular, unicellular, uniseriate or multiseriate hairs. Leaves alternate and spiral, or opposite, or in whorls of 3–5, petiolate, subsessile or sessile, or rarely peltate; pulvinae present or absent

• Stipules present or absent

• Lamina simple, symmetric or conspicuously asymmetric, filiform, acicular, subulate, linear, lanceolate, ovate, elliptic, oblanceolate, ovate, oblong, spathulate or orbicular; base cuneate, attenuate, rounded, cordate, hastate or sagittate or oblique; margins entire, rarely crenate, dentate or sinuate, ±flat, revolute or recurved; one-veined, or the venation pinnate, or parallel, or rarely palmate, with the midrib conspicuous or inconspicuous, and the tertiary venation reticulate or not; surfaces dark- or pellucid-punctate, or not punctate; herbaceous, leathery or hard and spinose; distinctive odour absent or aromatic

• Domatia present. All the flowers bisexual, or with male and bisexual flowers occurring together. Inflorescences terminal, axillary, cauliflorous or ramiflorous, consisting of capitula or glomerules, spikes, racemes, panicles, umbels, dichasial cymes or solitary flowers

• Bracts and bracteoles present or absent. Pollination by insects, birds, bats or small mammals. Flowers odourless or fragrant, sessile or stalked

• Floral disc present or absent; nectaries absent or present on the disc. Free hypanthium present or absent. Perianth regular, of 2 dissimilar whorls, or of 1 whorl only, or whorls ±similar, or apparently absent, imbricate in bud

• Calyptra present or absent

• Calyx segments free or fused, with 0 or 4–5 (–6) sepals or lobes; calyx rarely cup-shaped or bell-shaped, herbaceous, succulent or papery, rarely membranous, sometimes modified into a pappus, rarely comprised of bristles or scales, sometimes fused to form a calyptra with the petals

• Corolla segments free, or fused as a calyptra, or rarely a distinct tube or cup, with (0–) 1 or 4–5 (–6) petals or lobes, alternating with the sepals or calyx lobes, white, cream, yellow, orange, red, pink, magenta, purple, violet, green, without contrasting markings, membranous; claws present or absent; lobes ±entire, or trifid, trilobed or more divided, or ciliate or fimbriate

• Fertile stamens 3–numerous, alternating or not clearly correlated with the sepals or calyx lobes, free of the corolla, free of ovary and style, distinct from each other, grouped or fused into bundles or fused by their filaments into an open or closed tube, all ±equal or distinctly alternating long and short. 

• Staminodes present or absent

• Anthers dorsifixed or basifixed, versatile or not versatile, opening inwards or terminally by pores, by short slits, by longitudinal slits or by valves, 2-celled; appendages absent or apical

• Ovary part-inferior or inferior

• Carpels 1–10, fused; ovary with 1–11 locules. Style terminal, single, unbranched, truncate, capitate or peltate

• Ovules 1–numerous per locule, stalked or sessile; placentation basal, apical, parietal or axile. Fruit derived from a single flower or from several flowers (composite), dry or fleshy, dehiscent or indehiscent; a capsule with irregular, circumscissile or loculicidal dehiscence, a nut or berry, or rarely aggregated into a globular woody head (capsiconum); the perianth on the maturing fruit deciduous, or dry and persistent

• Disseminule macro-surface featureless, winged or awned; micro-surface ±smooth, white, yellow, orange, red, pink, magenta, purple, violet, green, brown, grey or black, glossy or dull. Seeds 1–numerous per fruit

• Aril absentCotyledons 2. Embryo straight, curved, sharply bent, coiled or round or shapeless. 
(Note: this description has been generated from the coded data compiled for the key.  Any errors in the key data will be reflected in the descriptions.)

• A treatment of part of the family Myrtaceae has been published in:
Flora of Australia 19: 1-456 (Eucalyptus and Angophora) only; remaining genera will be dealt with in Volumes 20 & 21.

• Australian genera of Myrtaceae (as recognised for the Flora of Australia)

; * = all species introduced

:

  1. Acmena


  2. Acmenosperma


  3. Actinodium


  4. Agonis


  5. Allosyncarpia


  6. Angasomyrtus


  7. Angophora

  8. 
Archirhodomyrtus


  9. Astartea


  10. Austromyrtus


  11. Backhousia


  12. Baeckea


  13. Balaustion

  14. 
Barongia


  15. Beaufortia


  16. Callistemon


  17. Calothamnus


  18. Calythropsis


  19. Calytrix


  20. Chamelaucium

  21. 
Choricarpia


  22. Cleistocalyx

  23. 
Conothamnus

  24. 
Corymbia

  25. 
Corynanthera

  26. 
Darwinia


  27. Decaspermum


  28. Eremaea


  29. Eucalyptopsis

  30. 
Eucalyptus


  31. Homalocalyx


  32. Homalospermum


  33. Homoranthus


  34. Hypocalymma


  35. Kunzea


  36. Lamarchea


  37. Leptospermum


  38. Lindsayomyrtus


  39. Lophostemon

  40. 
Lysicarpus


  41. Malleostemon


  42. Melaleuca


  43. Metrosideros


  44. Micromyrtus


  45. Mitrantia


  46. Myrtella


  47. *Myrtus

  48. 
Ochrosperma

  49. 
Osbornia


  50. Pericalymma


  51. Phymatocarpus


  52. Pileanthus


  53. Pilidiostigma


  54. *Psidium


  55. Regelia

  56. 
Rhodamnia

  57. 
Rhodomyrtus


  58. Rinzia


  59. Ristantia


  60. Scholtzia


  61. Sinoga


  62. Sphaerantia


  63. Syncarpia


  64. Syzygium


  65. Thryptomene

  66. 
Tristania


  67. Tristaniopsis


  68. Uromyrtus


  69. Verticordia


  70. Waterhousea


  71. Wehlia


  72. Welchiodendron


  73. Xanthostemon