Hamamelidaceae

▪ plant family

      the witch hazel family of the order Saxifragales, comprising 23 genera of shrubs and trees native to both tropical and warm temperate regions. It includes mildly popular ornamentals such as witch hazel, winter hazel, and Fothergilla, which are outstanding for their early flowering and fall leaf colour, and sweet gum trees. Members of the family are characterized by alternate, simple leaves and flowers usually having four or five often strap-shaped or small petals and four or five sepals. Sometimes either or both sepals and petals are lacking. Fruits are woody.

      Autumn leaf colour, changing from golden yellow to orange and scarlet, is an outstanding trait of ironwood (Parrotia persica), a small tree from northern Iran. Its flowers, produced before the leaves, have drooping stamens, lack petals, and have brown, leaflike bracts. This tree's close-grained wood is very strong, as are the twigs of the closely related Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana, which is used in its native Himalayan area for making baskets and bridges. A deciduous tree with petalless flowers, white bracts, and erect stamens, it is taller than ironwood, reaching about 6 metres (20 feet). The still-taller Japanese shrub Disanthus cercidifolius has dark purple flowers and leaves that turn crimson red in fall.

      The timber of the Himalayan and tropical Asian genus Exbucklandia (by some authorities Symingtonia), which has two species, is much valued. Altingia excelsa, from Java, is one of the largest trees of the Asian tropics, sometimes reaching a height of 25 metres (82 feet) and having a bole diameter of 2.5 metres. There are seven species of Altingia, all Asian and all valued for their timber.

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