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

Rubiaceae - Antirheoideae - Vanguerieae - Pyrostria Comm. ex Juss.

Description :

  • Shrubs or small trees, becoming somewhat spinescent; branchlets ± at right angles to branches
  • Leaves shortly petiolate, elliptic; stipules aristate, deciduous
  • Flowers solitary or fascicled on short pedicels
  • Calyx 4-lobed, lobes triangular
  • Corolla 4-lobed, white or yellowish white; lobes oblong-elliptic, apiculate, valvate; tube somewhat globose, densely bearded in throat
  • Stamens 4, arising in corolla throat; anthers subsessile, ovate
  • Disc semiglobose
  • Ovary 2-locular, with a single pendulous ovule in each locule; stigmatic knob subglobose, obscurely 2-lobed
  • Fruit a subspherical to heart-shaped, bilaterally flattened drupe; pyrenes narrowly obovoid to obovoid with ventral face flattened and apex somewhat crested
  • Seeds with testa finely reticulate

Nomenclature:

  • Pyrostria Comm. ex Juss.
    • Jussieu: 206 (1789)
    • Candolle: 464 (1830) in part
    • Hooker: 111 (1873)
    • Schumann: 94 (1891)
    • Bridson: 623 (1987)
    • Bridson: 340 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 10, Africa, Madagascar and Mauritius
  • Southern Africa : Species 1: Pyrostria hystrix (Bremek.) Bridson, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • BRIDSON, D.M. 1987. Studies in African Rubiaceae - Vanguerieae : a new circumscription of Pyrostria and a new subgenus, Canthium subgen. Bullockia . Kew Bulletin 42
  • BRIDSON, D.M. 1998. Rubiaceae . Flora zambesiaca 5,2
  • CANDOLLE, A.P. DE. 1830. Prodromus 4. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
  • HOOKER, J.D. 1873. Rubiaceae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 2. L. Reeve, London
  • JUSSIEU, A.L. DE. 1789. Genera plantarum . Ziegler, Zürich
  • SCHUMANN, K.M. 1891. Rubiaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4,4