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

Flacourtiaceae - Xylotheca Hochst.

Description :

  • Shrubs or trees, unarmed
  • Leaves alternate, petiolate; blade elliptic to broadly elliptic or obovate; stipules present
  • Flowers male or bisexual, solitary, cymose or subumbellate in upper leaf axils or terminal on branchlets, large, sweet-scented
  • Calyx of usually 3 sepals, concave, free or almost free, imbricate, glabrous or pubescent
  • Petals 7-14, free or narrowed to base, imbricate
  • Stamens many; filaments free; anthers linear, dehiscing longitudinally from above
  • Ovary rudimentary in male flowers, 1-locular, multiovulate; ovules pendulous from ± 7 parietal placentas; style terminal; stigmas equalling number of placentas, short, spreading
  • Fruit a woody capsule, splitting into ± 8 longitudinal valves; style persists as hard woody point
  • Seeds many, sometimes with a resinous aril

Nomenclature:

  • Xylotheca Hochst.
    • Hochstetter: 69 (1843)
    • Gilg: 402 (1925)
    • Wild: 272 (1960)
    • Killick: 58 (1976)
    • Hul & Breteler: 255 (1997)
  • Oncoba Forssk. in part
    • Forsskål: 103 (1775)
    • Harvey: 66 (1860)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 10, Africa, Madagascar
  • Southern Africa : Species 1: Xylotheca kraussiana Hochst., Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • FORSSKÅL, P. 1775. Flora aegyptiaco-arabica . Möller, Copenhagen
  • GILG, E.F. 1925. Flacourtiaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien , edn 2, 21
  • HARVEY, W.H. 1860. Bixaceae . Flora capensis 1
  • HOCHSTETTER, C.F.F. 1843. Nova genera plantarum Africae: Bixaceae . Flora 26,5
  • HUL, S. & BRETELER, F.J. 1997. Réductions génériques dans les Oncobeae ( Flacourtiaceae ). Adansonia , sér. 3, 19,2
  • KILLICK, D.J.B. 1976. Flacourtiaceae . Flora of southern Africa 22
  • WILD, H. 1960. Flacourtiaceae (including Samydaceae ). Flora zambesiaca 1