e-Key v3 - Warburgia
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Canellaceae - Warburgia Engl.

Description :

  • Trees, evergreen, glabrous, often aromatic
  • Leaves alternate, simple, entire, gland-dotted, penninerved, dark green, shiny above; stipules 0
  • Inflorescence axillary with flowers solitary or in abbreviated 3-flowered cymes
  • Flowers regular, bisexual
  • Sepals 3, imbricate, persistent, suborbicular
  • Petals 10, free, in 2 whorls, the outer larger and thicker than inner, pellucid gland-dotted
  • Stamens 10, hypogynous; filaments united in a tube; anthers sessile on upper part of tube, about as long as tube, linear, with fleshy apical appendage and with longitudinal extrorse dehiscence
  • Ovary superior, 1-locular; ovules 10-30 in 1 or 2 rows on 5 parietal placentas; style ± enclosed in staminal tube, truncate at apex, bearing 5 oval stigmatic patches round the sides, thick; stigmas 2-5
  • Fruit a berry; pericarp coriaceous
  • Seeds 2-many, shining; endosperm oily and fleshy

Nomenclature:

  • Warburgia Engl.
    • Engler: 276 (1895) name conserved
    • Codd: 40 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 3, Africa
  • Southern Africa : Species 1: Warburgia salutaris (G.Bertol.) Chiov., Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • CODD, L.E. 1976. Canellaceae . Flora of southern Africa 22
  • ENGLER, A. 1895. Reihe: PARIETALES - Fam. Winteraceae ( Canellaceae ). Die Pflanzenwelt Ostafrikas und der Nachbargebiete , Part C. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin