Inflorescences
fleshy, paniculately branched, each branch subtended by a bract slightly smaller than leaves
Male plants
: inflorescence branches with many shortly pedicellate flowers in groups of 2 or 3 on short secondary branches; male flowers: 3(4)-merous; tepals valvate; stamens with well developed filaments, inserted at base of perianth segments; anthers many-thecous, opening by apical pores
Female plants
: inflorescence branches with 5-12 subglobular, almost sessile, spadix-like clusters of ± 200 flowers completely sunk in a common receptacle; perianth segments 0; ovary 3(4)-merous, fused together, each 1-locular or at length 3-locular through intrusion of placentas, with 1-3 pendulous ovules; stigma discoid, sessile, peltate on a much reduced style, almost covering surface of receptacle
Fruit
a syncarp, individual fruits of each head developing into a globose pseudoberry
Seed
solitary
Nomenclature:
Sarcophyte
Sparrm.
Sparrman: 300, t. 7 (1776)
Griffith: 338 (1845)
Hooker: 29, t. 1/C (1856)
Harvey: 573 (1862)
Eichler: 126 (1873)
Hooker: 234 (1880)
Engler: 252 (1889)
Hemsley: 435 (1911)
Harms: 314 (1935)
Hansen: 364 (1986)
Hansen: 1 (1993)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Monotypic:
Sarcophyte
sanguinea
Sparrm., with 2 subspecies, confined to tropical east and southern Africa
Southern Africa
:
S
. subsp.
sanguinea
occurs in southernmost Mozambique and eastern southern Africa, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape
References:
EICHLER, A.W. 1873.
Balanophoraceae
. In A. de Candolle,
Prodromus
17. Masson & Sons, Paris
ENGLER, A. 1889.
Balanophoraceae
.
Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien
3,1
GRIFFITH, W. 1845. On the root-parasites referred by authors to
Rhizantheae
; and on various plants related to them.
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London
19
HANSEN, B. 1986. The
Balanophoraceae
of Continental Africa.
Botanische Jahrbücher
106,3
HANSEN, B. 1993.
Flora of tropical East Africa
.
Balanophoraceae
HARMS, H. 1935.
Balanophoraceae
.
Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien
2,16b
HEMSLEY, W.B. 1911.
Balanophoreae
.
Flora of tropical Africa
6,1
HOOKER, J.D. 1856. On the structure and affinities of
Balanophoreae
.
Transactions of the Linnean Society of London
22
HOOKER, J.D. 1880.
Balanophoreae
. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker,
Genera plantarum
3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
SPARRMAN, A. 1776.
Sarcophyte
.
Kongelige vetenskaps academiens handlingar
37
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