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

Apocynaceae - Asclepiadoideae - Marsdenieae - Telosma Coville

Description :

  • Perennial twiners
  • Leaves petiolate, elliptic or ovate-elliplic
  • Flowers in pedunculate or subsessile, umbel-like cymes which are subaxillary or lateral at nodes
  • Sepals elliptic, membranous, ciliate
  • Corolla with inflated base, then constricted into a neck, densely hairy in mouth and throat; lobes longer than tube
  • Corona of 5 erect, obovate lobes arising from base of staminal column, with a linear process from inner face which is longer than the lobe and projects above style head
  • Staminal column arising from base of corolla
  • Anthers 2-locular, with erect, membranous, ovate appendages reaching style apex
  • Pollinia linear, solitary and erect, with short caudicles
  • Style head pentagonal-ovoid
  • Follicles smooth
  • Seeds crowned with a tuft of hairs
  • x = 11

Nomenclature:

  • Telosma Coville
    • Coville: 384 (1905)
    • Brown: 775 (1908)
  • Prageluria N.E.Br.
    • Brown: 523 (1907)
    • Brown: 776 (1908)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 10, Africa to Malaya
  • Southern Africa : Species 1: Telosma africana (N.E.Br.) N.E.Br., Northern Province, Mpumalanga to KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • COVILLE, F.V. 1905. Telosma . Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 9
  • BROWN, N.E. 1907. Asclepiadeae . Flora capensis 4,1
  • BROWN, N.E. 1908. Asclepiadeae . Flora capensis 4,1