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

Amaranthaceae - Gomphrenoideae - Gomphreneae - Froelichinae - *Alternanthera Forssk.

Description :

  • Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes becoming woody at base, prostrate or erect to floating or scrambling
  • Leaves opposite, entire
  • Inflorescences heads or short spikes, axillary, sessile or pedunculate, solitary or fasciculate, bracteate; bracts persistent
  • Flowers bisexual, solitary in axils of bracts; bracteoles 2, usually shorter than perianth, persistent or not; perianth falling with fruit
  • Tepals 4 or 5, free or concrescent at base, similar to very dissimilar, glabrous or furnished with smooth or denticulate hairs
  • Stamens 2-5, some occasionally anantherous, hypogynous; filaments monadelphous at base into a cup or tube, alternating with large and laciniate to small pseudostaminodes or these rarely obsolete; anthers 1-thecous
  • Ovary suborbicular or obovate in outline, usually compressed; ovule solitary, pendulous, basal; style short or absent; stigma capitellate
  • Capsule thin-walled or sometimes corky, indehiscent
  • Seeds ± lenticular
  • x = 17 (7, 8, 9, 10) (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • *Alternanthera Forssk.
    • Forsskål: 28 (1775)
    • Brown: 416 (1810)
    • Hooker: 38 (1880)
    • Schinz: 115 (1893)
    • Baker & Clarke: 72 (1909)
    • Cooke & Wright: 431 (1910)
    • Schinz: 71 (1934)
    • Adamson: 362 (1950)
    • Podlech: 5 (1966)
    • Townsend: 121 (1985)
    • Townsend: 124 (1988)
    • Townsend: 166 (1993a)
    • Townsend: 89 (1993b)
  • Telanthera
    • Moq.: 362 (1849)
    • Hooker: 38 (1880)
    • Henderson & Anderson: 104 (1966)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 100, best represented in the New World tropics and subtropics
  • Southern Africa : Species 4, introduced and naturalised, widespread

References:

  • ADAMSON, R.S. 1950. Amaranthaceae Lindl. In R.S. Adamson & T.M. Salter, Flora of the Cape Peninsula . Juta, Cape Town
  • BAKER, J.G. & CLARKE, C.B. 1909. Amarantaceae . Flora of tropical Africa 6,1
  • BROWN, R. 1810. Amarantaceae Juss. Prodromus florae novae Hollandiae et Insulae van-Diemen 1. Johnson & Co., London
  • COOKE, T. & WRIGHT, C.H. 1910. Amarantaceae . Flora capensis 5,1
  • FORSSKÅL, P. 1775. Flora aegyptiaco-arabica . Möller, Copenhagen
  • HENDERSON, M.D. & ANDERSON, J.G. 1966. Common weeds in South Africa. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa 37
  • HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Amarantaceae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
  • MOQUIN-TANDON, C.H.B.A. 1849. Amarantaceae . In A.P. de Candolle, Prodromus 13,2. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
  • PODLECH, D. 1966. Amaranthaceae . Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 33
  • SCHINZ, H. 1893. Amarantaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,1a
  • SCHINZ, H. 1934. Amaranthaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien , edn 2, 16c
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1985. Flora of tropical East Africa . Amaranthaceae
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1988. Amaranthaceae . Flora zambesiaca 9,1
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993a. Amaranthaceae . Flora of Somalia 1
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993b. Amaranthaceae . In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin

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