e-Key v3 - Psychotria
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Rubiaceae - Rubioideae - Psychotrieae - Psychotria L.

Description :

  • Shrubs or small trees
  • Leaves petiolate, elliptic or elliptic-lanceolate or obovate; stipules lanceolate or ovate, caducous; colleters present
  • Flowers sessile or pedicellate, in panicles or terminal cymes
  • Calyx glabrous, persistent; tube saucer- or cup-shaped with minute teeth
  • Corolla 5-lobed, white, greenish white or yellow, glabrous; lobes reflexed, somewhat shorter than tube, valvate; tube campanulate or cylindric, hairy at throat
  • Stamens 5, arising in middle of corolla tube, slightly exserted; filaments ± as long as anthers; anthers linear or oblong, glabrous or pilose
  • Disc hemispherical
  • Ovary 2-locular, with a single erect ovule in each locule; style filiform, long or short; stigma bifid, lobes linear
  • Fruit an oval drupe, with 1 or 2(-4) pyrenes
  • x = 11 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Psychotria L.
    • Linnaeus: 929 (1759)
    • Hiern: 215 (1877)
    • Phillips: 735 (1951)
    • Verdcourt: 26 (1976)
    • Verdcourt: 9 (1989)
  • Grumilea Gaertn.
    • Gaertner: 138 (1788)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 1400, tropical regions
  • Southern Africa : Species 2, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape

References:

  • GAERTNER, C.F. 1788. De fructibus et seminibus plantarum 1. G.H. Schramm, Tübingen
  • HIERN, W.P. 1877. Rubiaceae . Flora of tropical Africa 3
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1759. Systema naturae , edn 10. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1976. Flora of tropical East Africa . Rubiaceae (part 1)
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1989. Rubiaceae . Flora zambesiaca 5,1