Aniba Aubl.

Evergreen trees or shrubs.  Terminal buds not perulate, inconspicuous.

Leaves alternate, occasionally crowded at the tips of the branchlets, penninerved, often conspicuously dull below.

Inflorescences thyrso-paniculate or botryoid, not involucrate.

Flowers trimerous, bisexual. Tepals 6, equal or the outer ones smaller, erect at anthesis.  Fertile stamens usually 9, in 3 whorls (rarely 6, then the third whorl sterile), stamens of the third whorl with a pair of glands at the base of the filaments.  Anthers 2-locular, in the two outer whorls apical-introrse, in the third whorl apical-extrorse to latrorse.  Staminodes of the fourth androecial whorl minute or absent.  Ovary enclosed in a deeply urceolate to tubular receptacle.

Fruit ellipsoid, seated in a distinct, more or less hemispherical cupule, occasionally with a not very pronounced double margin.  Tepals deciduous, rarely a few remnants persistent on the margin of the cupule.

South America, rarely also in Central America and the Antillae.  About 40 species, often difficult to separate.

Aniba is a member of the Cinnamomeae, and it appears to be monophyletic.  Several species of Aniba have a rather dull lower leaf surface, due to microscopic papillae, and/or dull greyish brown twigs, due to minute pubescence.  This is often combined with yellowish-orange inflorescences, or young fruits completely enclosed in their cupule crowned by remnants of the tepals, or mature fruits with a large, hemispherical, greyish-brown cupule.  The anthers are mostly somewhat apiculate, i.e., the connective protrudes a bit between the two nearly apical locules.  Unfortunately, none of these characters is really constant within the genus.

Further information:

Kubitzki, K. & Renner, S.  1982. Flora Neotropica, Volume 31: Lauraceae 1 (Aniba and Aiouea).