Trees; Guarea and Trichilia are common and very specious genera (Gentry)
Distribution
Throughout the Neotropics; common in lowland forests;
Floral characters
Inflorescence paniculate or racemose; sepals 4-6; small, free or partly connate, caducous; petals 4-6, free or basally connate; Disc generally present, intrastaminal; Stamens 8-12, often connate into a tube; ovary superior, 2-5-locular, style 1, stigma 1, simple or lobed; placentation axile; ovules generally 2 per locule; flowers usually small, whitish or cream
Leaf characters
most genera with even-pinnate leaves and sometimes an apical "bud" (Guarea); but Trichilia with terminal leaflets or unifoliate; also trifoliate and odd-pinnate compund leaves; leaves alternate
Stipules
absent
Fruit characters
Fruit a loculidal or septicidal capsule, rarely a drupe; a: capsules loculidally (?) dehiscent and with arillus (Guarea, Trichilia, Ruagea, Cabralea); bird dispersed b: capsules septifragally dehiscent (?), non arillate, usually winged, wind- or water dispersed (Schmardaea, Cabralea, Carapa) or winged seeds (Cedrela, Swietenia, Melia)
Glands
absent
Hairs
present or absent
Latex
absent
Odor
trunk slash of most genera with distinctive sweetish odor; Cedrela with unpleasant rank garliclike odor;
Uses
Most important neotropical timber family (mahagony, spanish cedar)
Distribution maps
(online von http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/ . Dort zitiert wie unter jedem Diagramm vermerkt):
Meliaceae
map: see Wickens 1976; Pennington 1981; FloraBase 2006; GBIF x.2009
