Shrublets, shrubs, or small trees, with stout waxy branches; plants dioecious
Leaves
in pairs or fascicled, small, few, succulent, flat or terete
Inflorescences
cymose clusters, fascicles or axillary racemes
Flowers
unisexual or only rarely bisexual
Sepals
2, short, persistent
Petals
5, free, longer than sepals, hypogynous, at length accrescent
Stamens
5, usually with aborted anthers in female flowers
Ovary
3-angled, slightly flattened; ovule solitary, basal, rudimentary in male flowers; style short or 0; stigma 2- or 3-fid
Fruit
a nut, compressed, asymmetrical, membranous, tightly enclosed in base of accrescent corolla, at first single-winged, but later becoming fleshy and wingless
x = 8 (high polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Ceraria
H.Pearson & Stephens
Pearson & Stephens: 32 (1912)
Pax & Hoffmann: 260 (1934)
Podlech: 7 (1967)
McNeill: 726 (1974)
Nyananyo: 238 (1990)
Carolin: 550 (1993)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species 6 in Africa
Southern Africa
: Species 3, Namibia and Northern Cape
References:
CAROLIN, R.C. 1993.
Portulacaceae
. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich,
The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons
2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
MCNEILL, J. 1974. Synopsis of a revised classification of the
Portulacaceae
.
Taxon
23
NYANANYO, B.L. 1990. Tribal and generic relationship in the
Portulacaceae
(CENTROSPERMAE).
Feddes Repertorium
101
PAX, F. & HOFFMANN, K. 1934.
Portulacaceae
.
Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien
, edn 2,16c
PEARSON, H.H.W. & STEPHENS, E.L. 1912. List of the plants collected in the Percy Sladen Memorial Expeditions, 1908-9, 1910-11.
Portulacaceae
.
Annals of the South African Museum
9
PODLECH, D. 1967.
Portulacaceae
.
Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika
29
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