The family includes trees, shrubs and lianas; most are evergreen but a few are deciduous. The leaves are opposite or whorled, rarely alternate, and simple or pinnate, and often with conspicuous stipules. The flowers have four or five (rarely three or up to ten) sepals and petals. The fruit is usually a woody capsule containing several small seeds; the seeds have an oily endosperm.
The familes Baueraceae, Davidsoniaceae and Eucryphiaceae, previously regarded as distinct, are now included in the Cunoniaceae.
The Cunoniaceae is a family of 26 genera and about 350 species of woody plants in the Antarctic flora, native to Australia, New Caledonia, New Guinea, New Zealand, southern South America, the Mascarene Islands and southern Africa.
The fruit is usually a woody capsule containing several small seeds; the seeds have an oily endosperm.
The familes Baueraceae, Davidsoniaceae and Eucryphiaceae, previously regarded as distinct, are now included in the Cunoniaceae.
The fossil record of the flowering plant family Cunoniaceae is comprehensively examined and reviewed using detailed studies of the morphology of extant Cunoniaceae with new macrofossil species described from Australian Cainozoic sediments.
Eleven of the 26 extant Cunoniaceaegenera are represented in the macrofossil record and include leaves and leaf fragments, foliar cuticle and reproductive structures.
Cunoniaceae fossil pollen is widely documented across the Southern Hemisphere but is less informative due to the low taxonomic resolution of its identification.
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