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

Cyperaceae - Caricoideae - Schoeneae - Cyathocoma Nees

Description :

  • Robust perennials, up to 1 m tall, with short horizontal rhizomes
  • Culms erect, with aerial nodes
  • Leaves eligulate, basal ones stout, up to 300 mm long, subdistichous; basal sheaths large, striate, adaxial apex V-shaped; blade without keeled midrib, profile thickly crescentiform
  • Inflorescence a large, fairly dense panicle; lowest bracts foliaceous
  • Spikelets straw-coloured to chestnut-red, ellipsoid, of 4 or 5 spirally arranged glumes, lowest 1 or 2 glumes empty, often aristate, next 1 fertile, bisexual, followed by 1 male floret or empty glume
  • Perianth of 6 bristles, longer than nut, sparsely barbate
  • Stamens 6
  • Style with swollen, conical, hispid base, shortly 3-branched
  • Nutlet brown to red-brown, obovate, 3-angled, with conspicuous hairy beak

Nomenclature:

  • Cyathocoma Nees
    • Nees: 300 (1835)
  • Macrochaetium Steud.
    • Steudel: 159 (1855)
    • Clarke: 291 (1898)
    • Schonland: 62 (1922)
    • Levyns: 77 (1947)
    • Levyns: 128 (1950)
    • Gordon-Gray: 111 (1972)
    • Bond & Goldblatt: 44 (1984)
  • Ideleria Kunth
    • Kuth: 310 (1837) name illegitimate
  • Tetraria P.Beauv. subgen. Eutetraria (C.B.Clarke) Kük. in part
    • Kükenthal: 195 (1940)
  • Recently Bruhl: 129 (1995) has shown that Cyathocoma Nees predates Macrochaetium Steud

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa : Species 3, Western Cape to KwaZulu-Natal with Cyathocoma bachmannii (Kük.) C.Archer possibly also in Mozambique

References:

  • BOND, P. & GOLDBLATT, P. 1984. Plants of the Cape Flora: A descriptive catalogue. Journal of South African Botany Suppl . Vol. 13
  • BRUHL, J.J. 1995. Sedge genera of the world: relationships and a new classification of the Cyperaceae . Australian Systematic Botany 8, 2
  • CLARKE, C.B. 1898. Cyperaceae . Flora capensis 7
  • GORDON-GRAY, K.D. 1972. Cyperaceae . In J.H. Ross, The Flora of Natal. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 39
  • KÜKENTHAL, G. 1940. Vorarbeiten zu einer Monographie der Rhynchosporoideae 9. Feddes Repertorium 48
  • KUNTH, C.S. 1837. Enumeratio plantarum 2. J.G. Cotta, Stuttgart & Tübingen
  • LEVYNS, M.R. 1947. Tetraria and related genera, with special reference to the flora of the Cape Peninsula. Journal of South African Botany 13
  • LEVYNS, M.R. 1950. Cyperaceae . In R.S. Adamson & T.M. Salter, Flora of the Cape Peninsula . Juta, Cape Town
  • NEES VON ESENBECK, C.G. 1835. Uebersicht der Cyperaceengattungen. Linnaea 9
  • SCHONLAND, S. 1922. Introduction to South African Cyperaceae . Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 3
  • STEUDEL, E.G. 1855. Synopsis plantarum glumacearum . 2. Cyperaceae . [Synopsis plantarum Cyperacearum.] J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart

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