Mocinnodaphne

Mocinnodaphne is a neotropical genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Lauraceae. The genus includes one or more species of evergreen trees, distributed mostly in tropical and subtropical regions of North America and Central America: California, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize...

Overview

Mocinnodaphne trees are shrubs or little trees hermaphodite and evergreen, of 2 to 10 m tall, called Mountain laurels. Like Oreodaphne they are present in Mountain Cloud forest in tropical areas like the Sierra Madre Del Sur in Guerrero, Mexico.^[1] The flowers are small, inconspicuas and bisexual. It is distinguished by the presence of only the third whorl of stamens fertile, anthers bicelled, staminodes of the fourth whorl well developed, and a cupule with persistent tepals subtending the fruit. The set of characters that make this genus distinct relates it to the cluster of genera formed by Ocotea, Nectandra, Cinnamomum, and few others.^[2] The fruit are succulent, olive fruit shaped with a deep thick cup, and dispersed mostly by birds.

Mocinnodaphne is related with Aiouea, Cinnamomum, where the species were included, Nectandra, Ocotea, Oreodaphne, and Umbellularia. The three most important characters were stomatal rim width, stomata and aperture length. The more close group has a wide stomatal rim and includes all the species of Aiouea from South America, neotropical species of Cinnamomum, and Mocinnodaphne.^[3]

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