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

Cucurbitaceae - Zehneria Endl.

Description :

  • Herbs, monoecious or dioecious, with tuberous rootstock
  • Leaves lobed
  • Tendrils simple
  • Flowers small, white
  • Male flowers racemose: calyx campanulate or rugulose, 5-dentate; corolla with spreading, 5-parted limb; stamens 3, 2-thecous, inserted at base of corolla, filaments free, filiform-cylindraceous, terminated by a subcordate connective, along each margin of which at back are attached linear, straight, 2-locular, free or cohering anthers
  • Female flowers umbellate or on simple peduncles: calyx and corolla as in male flowers; stigma cup-shaped, somewhat trilobed
  • Fruit a berry, oblong-fusiform, ovate or globose, with a subcoriaceous pericarp, pseudotrilocular or bilocular, few-seeded
  • Seeds compressed
  • x = 12 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

  • Zehneria Endl.
    • Endlicher: 69 (1833)
    • Jeffrey: 477 (1978)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 30; Africa to East Indies and Australia
  • Southern Africa : Species 3, all regions, rare in Northern Cape

References:

  • ENDLICHER, S.L. 1833. Zehneria . Prodromus florae Norfolkicae 69. F. Beck, Vienna
  • JEFFREY, C. 1978. Cucurbitaceae . Flora zambesiaca 4