Coriaria · Kew POWO · Kew Plants of the World Online
Coriaria
Sign in to saveCoriaria is the sole genus in the family Coriariaceae, which was described by Linnaeus in 1753. It includes 14 species of small trees, shrubs and subshrubs, with a widespread but disjunct distribution across warm temperate regions of the world, occurring as far apart as the Mediterranean region, southern and eastern Asia, New Zealand (where some are alpine species), the Pacific Ocean islands, and Central and South America.
Species
GENUS
- KingdomPlantae
- PhylumTracheophyta
- ClassMagnoliopsida
- OrderCucurbitales
- FamilyCoriariaceae
General: In New Guinea, Coriaria are small trees with small, sessile
via GBIF · Kew POWO
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 290
- With media
- 174
- Family
- Coriariaceae
- Collections
- MEL, IBUNAM, UCSB, RSA, BRIT, NY
- Recorded in
- Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, India, United States, Ecuador
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Species
- Hybrids
- Fossil record
- References
Coriaria is the sole genus in the family Coriariaceae, which was described by Linnaeus in 1753. It includes 14 species of small trees, shrubs and subshrubs, with a widespread but disjunct distribution across warm temperate regions of the world, occurring as far apart as the Mediterranean region, southern and eastern Asia, New Zealand (where some are alpine species), the Pacific Ocean islands, and Central and South America.
The leaves are opposite or in whorls, simple, long, without stipules. The flowers are borne in racemes 2–30 cm long, each flower small, greenish, with five small petals. The fruit is a small and shiny black (occasionally yellow or red) berry-like swollen corolla, highly poisonous in several species, though those of C. terminalis are edible. At least a few members of this genus are non-legume nitrogen fixers.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Coriaria” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.