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Euptelea

Family

Eupteleaceae

A genus of two species – from N. India, Burma, China, and Japan. They are trees with conspicuously toothed, long-stalked leaves, and remarkable flowers of no beauty; they have no sepals or petals. Stamens numerous; pistils stalked, six to eighteen in number, each developing into a curious flat samara, rather resembling that of the elm, but wedge-shaped, and tapering gradually from a rounded apex to a slender stalk. The Japanese species, and the Chinese form of E. pleiosperma, are both quite hardy, of graceful form, and give good colour effects in autumn. Increased by layers or seed.

The eupteleas are of considerable botanical interest in belonging to an anomalous group including Cercidiphyllum, Eucommia, Tetracentron, and Trochodendron, whose true place in the vegetable kingdom is variously estimated. The view followed here is that it should rank as a monotypic family (Nast and Bailey, Journ. Arn. Arb., Vol. 27, pp. 186-192, and Smith, ibid., pp. 175-185). Dr Hutchinson places Euptelea in the family Trochodendraceae.

Species articles