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

Flacourtiaceae - Kiggelaria L.

Description :

  • Unarmed, dioecious shrubs or small trees
  • Leaves alternate, petiolate, usually elliptic or ovoid, variously toothed, sometimes discolorous; stipules 0
  • Flowers unisexual
  • Male flowers in axillary cymes, on longish pedicels
  • Female flowers solitary on long pedicels
  • Sepals 5-parted, segments narrowly elliptic, valvate, deciduous, puberulous
  • Petals 5, often very similar to sepals, elliptic, imbricate, each with a fleshy gland adnate at base to petals and free above, puberulous
  • Stamens 8-10, free; filaments short; anthers 2-thecous, opening by terminal pores
  • Ovary sessile, ellipsoid, 1 or 2(-5) parietal placentas, densely pubescent; style short and thick, divided into 5 branches
  • Fruit a globose, woody, several-seeded capsule; valves 2-5, pubescent, sometimes tuberculate
  • Seeds subglobose; testa somewhat woody; embryo straight; cotyledons flat, suborbicular; endosperm fleshy

Nomenclature:

  • Kiggelaria L.
    • Linnaeus: 1037 (1753)
    • Harvey: 71 (1860)
    • Wild: 265 (1960)
    • Killick: 60 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species probably only 1: Kiggelaria africana L., tropical to southern Africa
  • Southern Africa : In all provinces of southern Africa and Swaziland and Lesotho; in forest, open forest, kloofs, along streams, scrub and even mountains of the Karoo

References:

  • HARVEY, W.H. 1860. Bixaceae . Flora capensis 1
  • KILLICK, D.J.B. 1976. Flacourtiaceae . Flora of southern Africa 22
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum . Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • WILD, H. 1960. Flacourtiaceae (including Samydaceae ). Flora zambesiaca 1