Styraceae
A natural order of trees or shrubs, mostly natives of the warmer parts of Asia, Australia, and America, a few being found in Northern temperate regions. Flowers usually white, rarely reddish, regular, hermaphrodite or rarely polygamo-dioecious, usually racemose; calyx gamosepalous, with five, rarely four, teeth or lobes; corolla of five, rarely four, petals, free or connate towards the base; stamens as many, or twice as many, as the corolla lobes, sometimes indefinite; disk wanting; bracts small, often minute or obsolete; pedicels ebracteolate. Fruit often baccate or drupaceous, one-seeded by abortion. Leaves alternate, exstipulate (or with minute rudimentary stipules?), entire or serrated, membranous or coriaceous, penniveined. The two balsams, Storax and Benzoin, are respectively derived from Styrax officinalis and S. Benzoin. Several of the species are employed as tea and for dyeing yellow in the Himalayas. The order embraces seven genera and about 220 species. Styrax and Symplocos are the principal genera, and include all the species, except about a dozen.