Fagaceae Dumort.
Trees, monoecious. Buttresses or stilt-roots sometimes present. Growth mode flush-wise, with perular buds. Leaves simple, spirally arranged, or crowded near the top of twigs (species of Quercus), pinnately veined, margin entire, denticulate, serrate, sometimes revolute. Stipules caducous or rarely persistent, extra-petiolar. Inflorescences unbranched or branched, bracteate spikes; male, female, androgynous, or mixed. Male inflorescences erect or pendulous, in the axils of lower leaves or in the axils of reduced leaves and crowded together in paniculate clusters on lateral or subterminal new shoots. Male flowers solitary or in dichasial clusters of 2–7 along the rachis, sessile. Perianth campanulate, 6(–9)-lobed; stamens (4–)6–12(–15), filaments filiform, exserted, free; anthers reniform or ovoid, dorsi- or basifixed, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode absent or present, if present densely hairy. Female, androgynous and mixed inflorescences erect, in the axils of upper (distal) leaves or on the lower parts of paniculate clusters on lateral or subterminal new shoots. Female flowers sessile, solitary or in dichasial clusters of 3–15 along the rachis; each flower surrounded by its own cupule (Lithocarpus and Quercus) or the entire cluster of flowers surrounded by a dichasial cupule (Castanopsis). Perianth 6-lobed; staminodes 6–12 or absent; ovary inferior, 3–6(–9)-loculed, ovules anatropous, 2 per locule, apical and pendulous; styles as many as ovary locules, terete, conical, or cylindrical, stigmas capitate (Quercus) or punctiform (Castanopsis and Lithocarpus). Cupules (woody or horny structures covering or substending flowers/fruits) sessile or stalked, solitary or in dichasial clusters along the rachis, saucer- to cup-shaped or completely enclosing the fruit, at maturity indehiscent or splitting into 2–8 (or more) equal or unequal segments; external wall muricate, scaly, spiny, tubercled, or with concentric or spiral lamellae, or rarely almost smooth. Fruits indehiscent nuts, 1–3-loculed, sometimes falsely multiseptate, rounded to sharply 3-angular in cross-section, at base with flat, concave or convex circular or rounded-triangular scar. Seeds without endosperm, embryo and cotyledons large, flat-convex, plicate or ruminate; germination hypogeal or epigeal.
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