FAGACEAE - BEECH FAMILY
Scientific Description:
Deciduous or evergreen trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate, simple, subentire to lobed, stipules often caducous. Flowers unisexual, apetalous, monoecious, usually in different inflorescences (except CastaneaMill.); Male flowers in catkins or long-stalked heads; perianth 4−6(−7)-lobed; stamens usually twice as many as perianth segments, pistillode sometimes present. Female flowers borne singly or in threes, arranged in spikes or at base of male inflorescence; each flower or group of 3 with a basal scaly involucre; perianth 4−6-lobed, epigynous; ovary inferior, 3- or 6-celled; ovules 2 per cell, axile; styles 3 or 6. Fruit a 1-seeded nut, 1−3 nuts being surrounded by a scaly or spiny cupule formed from accrescent involucre.
Reference:
Davis PH (1982). Fagaceae, In: Davis PH (ed.), Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 7: 657.
Public Description:
“Beech family” contains evergreen ordeciduous trees and shrubs and is mostly native tothe Northern Hemisphere. Many species of this family such as oak, chestnut and beech are used as timber in the construction of many types of floor parquets, furniture, cabinets and wine barrels.Cork plugs attached to the mouths of glass bottles are obtained from the bark of “cork oak(Quercus suber L.)”.Some species are used as ornamental plants. The beech family is an ecologically important family;their nuts are important sources of food for various insects, birds and mammals.
References:
Anonymous 1 (2016). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagaceae/, Accessed date: 22.01.2016.
Anonymous 2 (2016). http://science.jrank.org/pages/798/Beech-Family-Fagaceae.html/, Accessed date: 22.01.2016.
