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

Apocynaceae - Periplocoideae - Cryptolepideae - Cryptolepis R.Br.

Description :

  • Large to slender climbers or woody shrubs; roots not tuberous
  • Leaves linear to ovate or orbicular, opposite or subfascicled on short shoots, herbaceous to coriaceous, small to large, petiolate to sessile
  • Inflorescences terminal and/or axillary, racemose, few- to many-flowered
  • Flowers with gynostegium enclosed in corolla tube
  • Sepals ovate to triangular
  • Corolla : tube campanulate, lobes longer than tube, oblong-ovate to narrowly ovate; secondary corona of corniculate or filiform processes sometimes arising from corolla sinus pockets
  • Corona arising at ± middle of corolla tube; lobes clavate and fleshy or filiform
  • Stamens arising from near base of corolla tube; filaments free, short; anthers 4-locular, deltoid to hastate
  • Style head conical
  • Follicles paired, widely to narrowly divergent, linear-terete to very narrowly ovoid
  • Seeds oblong to obliquely ovate, smooth or warty, with tuft of hairs

Nomenclature:

  • Cryptolepis R.Br.
    • Brown: 58 (1811)
    • Brown: 242 (1904)
    • Brown: 526 (1907)
  • Curroria Planch. ex Benth.
    • Bentham: 457 (1849).
  • Ectadiopsis Benth.
    • Bentham: 741 (1876)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 25, Africa, Madagascar and Asia, from semidesert to savanna and tropical rain forest
  • Southern Africa : Species 6, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Cape

References:

  • BENTHAM, G. 1849. Curroria Planch. In W.J. Hooker, Niger Flora . Baillière, London
  • BENTHAM, G. 1876. Asclepiadeae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 2. Reeve, London
  • BROWN, N.E. 1902. Asclepiadeae . Flora of tropical Africa 4,1
  • BROWN, N.E. 1907. Asclepiadeae . Flora capensis 4,1
  • BROWN, R. 1810. On the Asclepiadeae , a natural order of plants separated from the Apocineae of Jussieu. Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society 1