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

Malvaceae - Malveae - *Lavatera L.

Description :

  • Herbs or soft-wooded shrubs, usually erect
  • Leaves simple, rounded, usually palmately lobed
  • Flowers axillary, solitary or fascicled
  • Epicalyx of 3 foliaceous bracts connate at base and fused with base of calyx, equalling or exceeding calyx
  • Calyx campanulate, slightly accrescent
  • Petals longer than calyx, pink to purple, forming funnel-shaped to rotate corolla
  • Staminal tube split at apex into many filaments
  • Gynoecium of 5-12 ± free, 1-ovuled carpels; style branches as many as carpels, filiform, stigmatic surface decurrent on adaxial side
  • Fruit a discoid to pumpkin-shaped schizocarp crowned in centre by persistent conical style base; mericarps 5-12
  • Seeds reniform, glabrous
  • x = 7 (9, 10, 11) (high polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

  • *Lavatera L.
    • Linnaeus: 690 (1753)
    • Fernandes: 251 (1968)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 21-23 in Old and New World (Ray 1995), closely related to Malva and still generally partly confused with it
  • Southern Africa : Species 4, naturalised, Namibia, Free State, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape

References:

  • FERNANDES, R. 1968. Lavatera . Flora europaea 2
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum . Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm