Botany: 4 genera: Anisophyllea, Combretocarpus, Poga, Polygonanthus; pantropical; shrubs; wet, tropical forests, swamps; America, Africa, Asia; leaves palmately veined leaves, leathery, entire margins, often asymmetrical at the base, minute stipules, alternate, spiral, distichous, or four-ranked; small flowers in axillary racemes or panicles; inferior, 3 to 4-locular ovary develops into a drupe or a samara; usually one seed.
TaxonomyTakhtajan classified
Anisophylleaceae in its own order Anisophylleales.
Anisophylleaceae have similarities in flower morphology with the genus Ceratopetalum of
Cunoniaceae. Several wood features of
Anisophylleaceae are more primitive than other families in
Cucurbitales.
Anisophylleaceae is the first diverging lineage of the
Cucurbitales.
In the
Plant theory Anisophylleaceae is placed in
Subphase 1.