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

Asteraceae - Heliantheae - *Zinnia L.

Description :

  • Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes shrubby
  • Leaves opposite, sessile or shortly petiolate, simple, bases connate and sheathing stem, margins entire, roughly hairy
  • Capitula radiate, large, solitary, terminal on long, hollow peduncle swollen below capitulum
  • Involucre narrowly or broadly campanulate or subcylindric; bracts in 3 to many rows, oblong or obovate, imbricate, apices rounded with darker or discoloured summit band at or near apex
  • Receptacle conical to concave, with paleae conduplicate, embracing disc florets
  • Ray florets female, fertile; corolla strap-shaped, discolorous, outer surface greyish white, inner surface reddish or brownish red, drying purplish, persistent
  • Cypselas 3-angled or dorsiventrally compressed
  • Pappus 0
  • Disc florets bisexual, fertile; corolla brownish yellow, tubular, 5-toothed
  • Anthers with small apical appendage, base obtuse
  • Style branches long, linear, obtuse or subtruncate
  • Cypselas obovate, 3-angled or compressed
  • Pappus of 1 or 2 awns
  • x = 10, 11, 12 (7, 9, 13) (aneuploids, polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

  • *Zinnia L.
    • Linnaeus: 1189 (1759) name conserved
    • Phillips: 813 (1951)
    • Torres: 4 (1963)
    • Wild: 54 (1967)
    • Hilliard: 299 (1977)
    • Karis & Ryding: 588 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 22, America, Peru, Mexico
  • Southern Africa : Species 1: * Zinnia peruviana (L.) L., a widespread weed, absent from Western Cape

References:

  • HILLIARD, O.M. 1977. Compositae in Natal . University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
  • KARIS, P.O. & RYDING, O. 1994. Tribes Helenieae and Heliantheae . In K. Bremer, Asteraceae , cladistics and classification . Timber Press, Portland, Oregon
  • LINNAEUS, C. VON. 1759. Systema naturae 2 (edn 10). Theodor Haak, Leiden
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants, edn 2. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • TORRES, A.M. 1963. Taxonomy of Zinnia . Brittonia 15
  • WILD, H. 1967. The Compositae of the Flora zambesiaca area, 1. Kirkia 6