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

Amaranthaceae - Amaranthoideae - Amarantheae - Aervinae - Sericocoma Fenzl

Description :

  • Glabrous or hairy herbs or subshrubs
  • Leaves opposite or partly alternate, linear, oblong or occasionally obovate, sessile, entire
  • Inflorescences terminal heads or spiciform, 1 or 2 flowers together with 1-more flowers reduced to spines, bracteate
  • Flowers all bisexual, solitary in axils of bracts; bracteoles 2, falling with fruit
  • Tepals 5, connate at base, coriaceous or chartaceous, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, long-pilose, subequal, outer not long-aristate
  • Stamens 5, shortly connate below; pseudostaminodes minute 0; anthers 2-thecous
  • Ovary ± ovoid, woolly or tomentose; ovule solitary, suspended from apex of elongated funicle; style slender; stigma capitate
  • Capsule thin-walled, included in perianth, membranous, indehiscent
  • Seed compressed; embryo annular

Nomenclature:

  • Sericocoma Fenzl
    • Fenzl: 33 (1842)
    • Fenzl: 323 (1843)
    • Hooker: 30 (1880)
    • Schinz: 106 (1893)
    • Schinz: 236 (1911) excluding S. pungens
    • Baker & Clarke: 41 (1909)
    • Cooke & Wright: 416 (1910)
    • Schinz: 43 (1934)
    • Podlech: 21 (1966)
    • Townsend: 82 (1993)
  • Sericocoma Fenzl subgen. Eurotia Schinz
    • Schinz: 183 (1895) in key
  • Sericocoma Fenzl subgen. Eusericocoma Schinz
    • Schinz: 183 (1895), in part

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 3, confined to southern Africa
  • Southern Africa : Dry parts of Namibia, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape

References:

  • BAKER, J.G. & CLARKE, C.B. 1909. Amarantaceae . Flora of tropical Africa 6,1
  • COOKE, T. & WRIGHT, C.H. 1910. Amarantaceae . Flora capensis 5,1
  • FENZL, E. 1842. Amarantaceae . In S.L. Endlicher, Mantissa plantarum sistens generum plantarum supplementum secundum . Beck, Vienna
  • FENZL, E. 1843. Stirpium novarum capensium. Sericocoma . Linnaea 17
  • HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Amarantaceae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
  • PODLECH, D. 1966. Amaranthaceae . Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 33
  • SCHINZ, H. 1893. Amarantaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,1a
  • SCHINZ, H. 1895. Amarantaceae africanae. Botanische Jahrbücher 21
  • SCHINZ, H. 1911. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der afrikanischen Flora XXIV. Vierteljahrsschrift der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich 56,3
  • SCHINZ, H. 1934. Amaranthaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien , edn 2, 16c
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993. Amaranthaceae . In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin