Aiouea Aubl.

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

Leaves alternate, penninerved or occasionally subtriplinerved.

Inflorescences thyrso-paniculate, not involucrate.

Flowers trimerous, bisexual. Tepals 6, equal, erect to spreading (?) at anthesis.  Fertile stamens usually 9, in 3 whorls (rarely 6 or 3, then the third whorl or the second and 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 introrse, in the third whorl extrorse to latrorse.  Staminodes of the fourth androecial whorl present, often with a cordate to sagittate glandular head, sometimes stipitate without a glandular head.  Ovary superior, in a (bowl-shaped to) cup-shaped (to almost tubular) receptacle.

Fruit ellipsoid to subglobose, seated on a shallow to cup-shaped cupule, often merging into a distinctly swollen pedicel.  Tepals mostly deciduous or often their bases persistent on the margin of the cupule.

(Central and) South America.  About 20-25 species in the current circumscription.

Most species of Aiouea are glabrous or nearly so, and yellowish green compared to most other Lauraceae.  Compared to Aniba, which may have similar flowers, the leaves of Aiouea are somewhat lustrous below, vs. often very dull in Aniba.  At least some of the Central American species included in Aiouea by Renner (1982) belong to a different evolutionary lineage, currently placed in Ocotea, from which they differ by having lost their upper pollen sacs.

Aiouea is a member of the Cinnamomeae, closely related to the Neotropical species currently placed in Cinnamomum.  In some cases there are even distinct resemblances on the species level (e.g., Aiouea grandifolia / Cinnamomum napoense, see van der Werff 1994) that need further study.

Further information:

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

Van der Werff, H.  1994.  Novelties in Neotropical Lauraceae.  Novon 4: 58-76.