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

Apocynaceae - Asclepiadoideae - Asclepiadeae - Aspidonepsis Nicholas & Goyder

Description :

  • Perennial geophytic herbs; rootstock a globose, fusiform or napiform tuber
  • Stems 1 (3 in A. flava ), erect, never more than 650 mm tall
  • Leaves spreading to ascending, linear, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, older leaves shorter and broader; petiole 0-5 mm long
  • Inflorescences umbelliform, terminal, subterminal and nodal; bracts present at anthesis
  • Corolla saucer-shaped or reflexed with lobe apices ascending
  • Corona with lower parts fused to staminal column; lobes produced 0.5-1.8 mm above corolla, cucullate; cavity saccate, with or without appendage
  • Style head swollen; apex truncated
  • Anthers 2-locular; appendages shaped like a kidney or a goat's foot, with a deep apical cleft, or rectangular; pollinaria wishbone-shaped; corpuscle fusiform, corpuscle and caudicles articulated and winged; pollinia semicircular to hemiovoid or clavate

Nomenclature:

  • Aspidonepsis Nicholas & Goyder
    • Nicholas & Goyder: 24 (1992)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 5, southern Africa
  • Southern Africa : Confined to the high altitude mountain grasslands of the Drakensberg in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape

References:

  • NICHOLAS, A. & GOYDER, D.J. 1992. Aspidonepsis ( Asclepiadaceae ), a new southern African genus. Bothalia 22