From the Latin anti — against and desma — a band or constriction.
Subshrubs, shrubs or trees, male and female flowers on separate plants, perennial, evergreen or deciduous; stems and foliage without latex. Indumentum of simple, multicellular hairs. Stipules entire, inconspicuous, soon shed. Leaves alternate, stalked, unlobed, penninerved, without glands; margins entire to wavy. Inflorescences terminal, leaf-opposed or axillary, racemose or spike-like, solitary, unisexual,with flowers in bracted clusters.male flowers stalkless; calyx lobes 5, overlapping, cup-shaped or more or less free; petals absent; disk present, cup-shaped or annular, composed of free or fused glands; stamens 3-6, filaments free and arising from amongst disk glands. Female flowers single in bracts, stalked; calyx lobes 5, overlapping, cup-shaped or more or less free; petals absent; disk cupshaped or annular, comprised of free or fused glands; ovary 1-2-chambered, ovules 2 per locule, styles 2-3, shortly fused, usually divided into 2, terminal or lateral. Fruit drupaceous, indehiscent, oblique, often flattened, surface smooth. Seeds ellipsoid to flattened-elliptic, ecarunculate.
Sensitive to frost.
Seeds or cuttings.
Fruits drupaceous, soft-fleshy and red-purple.
About 170 species in the Old World tropics, with 5 species in Australia.1 species is commonly cultivated.
Airy Shaw (1980).
Source: (2002). Euphorbiaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
