Meiogyne


Meiogyne is a genus of flowering plants with about 28 species belonging to the family Annonaceae. It is native from southwestern India and Indochina to Australia, including Fiji and New Caledonia.

Description

Trees or shrubs with pale straw coloured twigs. Leaves membraneous and with prominent veins. Flowers axillary, medium to large. Sepals 3, valvate, connate at base. Petals 6, valvate in two series, tapering gradually from a broad base upward and diverging, densely tomentose or sericeous-tomentose. The inner petals are slightly shorted in length with a warted patch at base inside. Stamens numerous with flat-topped slightly oblique connective tissue, concealing the anther lobes with viewed from above. Torus convex. Ovaries 2 to 5 with several ovules in two rows. Stigma discoid, sessile. Carpels thick-walled, sessile or sub-sessile.
Meiogyne virgata Miq. is the type species.
Meiogyne is different from Cyathocalyx in several ways. The leaf texture is different. Flowers are axillary and not extra-axillary or leaf-opposed. Arrangement of the is diverging from a broad base and not clawed and constricted and the base is not adpressed over the stamens. The warted base of the inner petal is peculiar. The stamens and stigmas are similar to Cyathocalyx. Meiogyne is similar to Polyalthia in its spreading petals and similarity of stamens, but the large number of seeds and sessile, discoid stigma are distinguishing features.

Species