Byttneriaceae

Byttneria, named after David Sigismund Augustus Byttner (Buettner)(1724-1768), a physician and botanist later Professor of Botany at the University of Gottingen. One of the ten groups in the Malvaceae s. lat., it was previously a section in the Sterculiaceae but has now been recognised as a separate family (Heywood et al.). Since then the Angiosperm Phylogeny group recognises 9 subfamilies, so the alternative name for this group is the subfamily Byttnerioideae. Mainly small trees, shrubs or herbs, bark is fibrous, stellate hairs are common on most parts. Leaves are alternate, simple, margins usually serrate. Flowers with 5 sepals and 5 petals; stamens in a single whorl, 5 or more fertile stamens alternating with staminodes, filaments often fused to form a tube. Carpels 5, ovary superior, fruit usually dehiscent.