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

Lauraceae - Cryptocarya R.Br.

Description :

  • Trees or shrubs
  • Leaves alternate, rarely subopposite, coriaceous, usually elliptic, sometimes linear, pinnately nerved or digitately 3-nerved from near or at base
  • Inflorescences subterminal or axillary, thyrso-paniculate
  • Flowers bisexual, 3-merous, rarely solitary
  • Perianth : tube ovoid, turbinate or subcylindrical, accrescent and constricted above after flowering
  • Tepals in 2 whorls of 3, subequal, deciduous
  • Stamens 9, fertile, in 3 whorls, those of outer 2 whorls with introrse anthers, of third whorl arising on upper part of perianth tube and with extrorse anthers and filaments with 2 sessile or stipitate glands; filaments usually shorter than anthers; anthers all 2-thecous; staminodes of whorl four conspicuous, often ± sagittate
  • Ovary sessile, enclosed in tube; style cylindrical, included or shortly exserted; stigma slightly expanded
  • Fruit globose or subcylindrical, entirely enclosed in the enlarged hardened or fleshy perianth tube, with minute orifice at apex, smooth or longitudinally ribbed; pericarp hard or membranous
  • Seed globose; testa membranous, not or hardly separable from pericarp
  • x = 12

Nomenclature:

  • Cryptocarya R.Br.
    • Brown: 402 (1810)
    • Nees: 192, 205 (1836)
    • Endlicher: 318 (1837)
    • Meisner: 68 (1864)
    • Baillon: 472 (1870)
    • Bentham: 150 (1880)
    • Pax: 122 (1889)
    • Stapf: 172 (1909)
    • Stapf: 494 (1912)
    • Kostermans: 91 (1938)
    • Van der Werff: 384 (1991)
    • Rohwer: 386 (1993)
    • Verdcourt: 7 (1996)
    • Diniz: 49 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 350, pantropical, centred in lndo-Malayan area with few in Australia and Africa
  • Southern Africa : Species 7, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape

References:

  • BAILLON, H.E. 1870. Monographie des Lauracées, Élaeagnacées et Myrticacées. Histoire des plantes . Hachette, Paris
  • BENTHAM, G. 1880. Laurineae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
  • BROWN, R. 1810. Laurinae Vent. Prodromus florae novae Hollandiae et Insulae van-Diemen 1. J. Johnson & Co., London
  • DINIZ, M.A. 1997. Lauraceae . Flora zambesiaca 9,2
  • ENDLICHER, S.L. 1837. Laurinae . Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita . Beck, Vienna
  • KOSTERMANS, A.J.G.H. 1938. The African Lauraceae 1. (Revision of the Lauraceae IV). Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de l'État Bruxelles 15
  • MEISNER, C.F. 1864. Lauraceae . In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 15. Masson & Sons, Paris
  • NEES von ESENBECK, C.G.D. 1836. Systema laurinarum : 192, 205. Veit, Berlin
  • PAX, F. 1889. Lauraceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III, 2
  • ROHWER, J.G. 1993. Lauraceae . In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
  • STAPF, O. 1909. Laurineae . Flora of tropical Africa 6,1
  • STAPF, O. 1912. Laurineae . Flora capensis 5,1
  • VAN DER WERFF, H. 1991. A key to the genera of Lauraceae in the New World. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 78
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1996. Flora of tropical East Africa . Lauraceae

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