Botanical Family · Malpighiales

Phyllanthaceae

3 speciesOrder Malpighiales3+ well-known plants

The Phyllanthaceae family is a botanical family placed in the order Malpighiales. In the SASYA catalogue it spans 4 species across 4 genera. Its members are predominantly trees. Well-represented genera include Breynia, Cleistanthus and Flueggea. Familiar examples include Snowbush, Malabar Closed-Flower and Bushweed.

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Representative specimen · Phyllanthaceae

Key pattern

Small, often two-ranked leaves along thin branchlets that can look like a single pinnate leaf; tiny unisexual flowers lack petals and cluster in leaf axils, ripening into a small three-lobed capsule that splits explosively to fling its seeds.

Several genera arrange their leaves in flattened, two-ranked sprays along deciduous side-branchlets that drop whole, mimicking a single compound leaf.

Identify the species

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Family identification method

To check whether a plant belongs to Phyllanthaceae, compare the leaf arrangement, leaf type, flower symmetry, fruit type, and one distinctive marker together. A single feature can mislead; the family pattern is the combination.

Learn the full family-identification method