ABSTRACT
Herbaceous (perennial or annual) or woody (trees, shrubs, subshrubs) plants with simple or branched stems, equipped with thorns or spines and stipulate, simple or compound leaves, arranged alternately, deciduous, very rarely persistent. The flowers, solitary or arranged in inflorescences (racemes or cymes), are usually hermaphroditic, actinomorphic, rarely unisexual, of the pentamerous type (rarely unisexual or of the tetramerous type). The floral envelope consists of free elements (dialisepal and dialipetal). An epicalyx may rarely appear on the exterior, and the corolla may also be absent, albeit rarely. Numerous stamens are fixed, along with sepals and petals, to the receptacle, which can take the form of a disc, cone, or pitcher. The gynoecium can be monocarpellary or multicarpellary, with carpels either free or fused, uni- or polilocular, with one or many ovules, and it may be inferior or superior. The ovules are anatropous. Nectaries are present at the base of the receptacle, and pollination is primarily entomophilous. The fruit can vary greatly, being either simple or compound. When it is compound, it is made up of drupes, achenes, or follicles, partially united or free on the fleshy receptacle. In other cases, the partial (free) fruits may be enclosed in an enlarged and swollen receptacle resembling a pitcher, or attached to a large, fleshy, bulging receptacle, or concrescent with the receptacle, which becomes enlarged and fleshy. The seeds are exalbuminate. The extensive variability of the gynoecium and fruits has led to the classification of this family into three subfamilies: Rosoideae, Maloideae (Pomoideae), and Prunoideae.
