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

Solanaceae - Withania Pauquy

Description :

  • Hoary herbs and subshrubs, sparsely pubescent to glabrescent
  • Leaves entire or slightly sinuate
  • Flowers small, usually fascicled, subsessile or shortly pedicellate
  • Calyx campanulate, 5- or 6-toothed, enlarged and inflated in fruit
  • Corolla narrowly campanulate, 3-6-fid; lobes valvate
  • Stamens arising near corolla base; filaments slightly flattened; anthers erect, thecae parallel, dehiscing longitudinally
  • Disc annular, crenulate or 0
  • Ovary 2-locular; style filiform; stigma shortly and widely 2-lamellate or subglobose; ovules many
  • Fruit a globose berry, shorter than enlarged calyx
  • Seeds compressed; embryo near margin, incurved or spiral, cotyledons semiterete
  • x = 12 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Withania Pauquy
    • Pauquy: 14 (1825)
    • Wright: 107 (1904)
    • Henderson & Anderson: 286 (1966)
    • Podlech & Roessler: 17 (1969)
    • Hepper: 211 (1991)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 10, Old World
  • Southern Africa : Species 1, Withania somnifera (L.) Dun., widespread

References:

  • HENDERSON, M. & ANDERSON, J.G. 1966. Common weeds in South Africa. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 37
  • HEPPER, F.N. 1991. Old World Withania ( Solanaceae ): A taxonomic review and key to the species. In J.G. Hawkes, R.N. Lester, M. Nee and N. Estrada, Solanaceae III. Taxonomy-chemistry-evolution . Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • PAUQUY, C.L.C. 1825. Withania . De la Belladone . Didot le Jeune, Paris
  • PODLECH, D. & ROESSLER, H. 1969. Solanaceae . Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 124
  • WRIGHT, C.H. 1904. Solanaceae . Flora capensis 4,2