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

Rutaceae - Coleonema Bartl. & H.L.Wendl.

Description :

  • Shrubs or shrublets, virgate, erect, arising (except for C. nubigenum ) from a single stem at base
  • Leaves alternate, linear or linear-lanceolate, acute, mucronate, petiolate, glabrous, gland-dotted, ± in two rows; margins narrowly translucent, smooth, ciliolate, serrulate or villose-ciliate
  • Flowers solitary, terminal or axillary, subtended by 3-8 bracts and 2 bracteoles
  • Petals 5, spreading, white or pink; claw (except for C. nubigenum ) connate with staminode
  • Anthers 5, each with a minute apical gland
  • Disc cupular, narrow, partly free, fairly level on top
  • Ovary 5-carpellate, glabrous; apices globose with an immersed gland; stigma capitate, depressed globose; style and filaments short, glabrous
  • Fruit 5-carpellate, glabrous, hornless or with short horns, spreading or erect
  • x = 17 (9) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Coleonema Bartl. & H.L.Wendl.
    • Bartling & Wendland: 55, t. A (1824)
    • Williams: 63 (1981)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa : Species 8, concentrated in Western Cape, extending eastwards to Uitenhage (S Eastern Cape)

References:

  • BARTLING, F.G. & WENDLAND, H.L. 1824. I. Diosmeae descriptae et illustratae. Beiträge zur Botanik 1
  • WILLIAMS, I. 1981. Studies in the genera of the Diosmeae ( Rutaceae ). A revision of the genus Coleonema . Journal of South African Botany 47