XLVI. RHIZOPHORACEÆ.
Glabrous trees or shrubs, with terete branchlets, and usually opposite coriaceous entire persistent leaves, with interpetiolar stipules. Flowers in axillary clusters; calyx-lobes valvate in the bud, persistent; petals inserted on the tube of the calyx and as many as its lobes; stamens inserted at the base of a conspicuous disk; anthers 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of 2—5 united carpels; ovary 2—5-celled; ovules usually 2 in each cell, suspended from its apex, collateral, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit usually indehiscent, 1-celled and 1-seeded.
The Mangrove family is tropical, with most of its seventeen genera confined to the Old World.