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

Asteraceae - Senecioneae - Lopholaena DC.

Description :

  • Perennial herbs, shrublets or shrubs
  • Leaves alternate, sessile or subsessile, linear to suborbicular, entire to serrate, often amplexicaul and decurrent, fleshy
  • Capitula discoid, solitary, clustered or paniculate-corymbose, few- to many-flowered
  • Involucre ecalyculate, narrowly campanulate; bracts few to many, in 1 row, connate, at length free to base, sometimes keeled on back or more rarely with wide crest or wing, glabrous or rarely hairy
  • Receptacle flat, honeycombed, margins of alveolae slightly raised; epaleate
  • Florets bisexual, innermost sometimes functionally male; corolla white, pink or purplish; tube becoming campanulate above, articulate ± in middle of cylindric base, with 5 ± deltoid lobes
  • Anthers ecalcarate and ecaudate; with ovate to ovate-oblong appendage; endothecial tissue radial
  • Style terete; branches linear-obtuse, with long, filiform, papillose appendages
  • Cypselas ellipsoid-oblong, obscurely ribbed, glabrous or pubescent
  • Pappus of many fine bristles

Nomenclature:

  • Lopholaena DC.
    • Candolle: 335 (1838)
    • Harvey: 315 (1865)
    • Phillips & Smith: 221 (1934)
    • Hilliard: 365 (1977)
    • Bremer: 505 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 20, tropical and southern Africa
  • Southern Africa : Species 8, summer-rainfall parts but absent from Botswana and Free State

References:

  • BREMER, K. 1994. Asteraceae , cladistics & classification . Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
  • CANDOLLE, A.P. DE. 1838. Compositae . Prodromus 6. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
  • HARVEY, W.H. 1865. Compositae . Flora capensis 3
  • HILLIARD, O.M. 1977. Compositae in Natal . University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. & SMITH, C.A. 1934. A revision of the genus Lopholaena DC. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 21