e-Key v3 - Colubrina
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Rhamnaceae - Colubrina Rich. ex Brongn.

Description :

  • Evergreen scandent shrubs to lax trees; branchlets terete, often reduced to axillary spines
  • Leaves alternate, rarely subopposite, petiolate; eglandular, elliptic to elliptic-ovate; stipules conspicuous
  • Flowers 5-merous, borne in cymose, few-flowered inflorescences; bracts minute, deltoid, caducous; receptacle hemispherical with calyx and androecium borne at rim
  • Sepals valvate in bud, deltoid, spreading
  • Petals 0
  • Stamens erect; anthers incurved, 2-thecous, dorsifixed, versatile
  • Disc thick and fleshy
  • Ovary 3-locular, entirely immersed in and adnate to disc and receptacle; ovules subsessile on basal placentas, 1 per locule; styles 3, free, tapering off terminally; stigma indistinct
  • Fruit capsular, faintly 3-coccous with stipe and basal part of capsule (receptacle) persistent
  • Seeds 1 per locule, oblong-obovate; testa hard and shiny; embryo flat, with fleshy, broadly elliptical cotyledons; endosperm abundant
  • x = 8 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Colubrina Rich. ex Brongn.
    • Brongniart: 61 (1826)
    • Brongniart: 368 (1827) name conserved
    • Van Wyk & Schrire: 379 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa : Species 1: Colubrina nicholsonii A.E. van Wyk & Schrire, three small populations in Pondoland (Eastern Cape): Daza and Mtentu River populations are protected in the Mkambati Game Reserve, third population in riverine forest along Mpunzaana River

References:

  • BRONGNIART, A.T. 1826. Mémoire sur la famille des Rhamnées . Didot le Jeune, Paris
  • BRONGNIART, A.T. 1827. Annales des sciences naturelles . Paris 10
  • VAN WYK, A.E. & SCHRIRE, B.D. 1986. A remarkable new species of Colubrina ( Rhamnaceae ) from Pondoland. South African Journal of Botany 52