Stachyurus Explained

Stachyurus is the only genus in the flowering plant family Stachyuraceae,^[1] native to the Himalayas and eastern Asia. They are deciduous shrubs or small trees with pendent racemes of 4-petalled flowers which appear on the bare branches before the leaves.^[2] The plants have leaves with serrate margins.

Pendunculagin, casuarictin, strictinin, casuarinin and casuariin are ellagitannins found in species in this genus.^[3]

Stachyurus praecox from Japan, and the slightly later-flowering S. chinensis from China, are both cultivated as ornamental plants, valued for their exceptionally early flowering periods.

Species list

• Stachyurus chinensis
• Stachyurus coaetaneus
• Stachyurus cordatulus
• Stachyurus himalaicus
• Stachyurus obovatus
• Stachyurus praecox
• Stachyurus retusus
• Stachyurus salicifolius
• Stachyurus yunnanensis

External links

• Stachyuraceae in Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards).

Notes and References

1. Christenhusz, M. J. M. . Byng, J. W. . amp . 2016 . The number of known plants species in the world and its annual increase . Phytotaxa . 261 . 201–217 . 10.11646/phytotaxa.261.3.1 . 3 . Magnolia Press . free .
2. Book: RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants. 2008. Dorling Kindersley. United Kingdom. 978-1405332965. 1136.
3. http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=9467908 Tannins of Casuarina and Stachyurus species. I: Structures of pendunculagin, casuarictin, strictinin, casuarinin, casuariin, and stachyurin. Okuda T., Yoshida T., Ashida M. and Yazaki K., Journal of the Chemical Society, 1983, no8, pp. 1765-1772