Perennial herbs or shrublets, erect to prostrate, rarely rooting at nodes
Leaves
simple, petiolate or sessile; blade variously shaped from needle-like to ovate, sometimes cordate
Flowers
in small, unisexual or bisexual, pendunculate, capitate umbels (umbellules), occasionally solitary; each umbel with a single, bisexual (functionally female) flower surrounded by 4 male flowers, or more often with a single-flowered bisexual umbel and several (1)3-5(7)-flowered male umbels (andromonoecious or androdioecious), rarely all flowers bisexual; bracts 2-4, usually lanceolate
Calyx
appearing as annular ring
Petals
valvate, ovate-acute, often with incurved tips
Disc
± flat
Stamens
with anthers ± as long as linear flaments
Fruit
of 2 laterally compressed mericarps; mericarps smooth or 9-11-ribbed, with ribs usually connected by network of veins; oil ducts indistinct or 0
x = 9 (11) (polyploidy, B-chromosomes)
Nomenclature:
Centella
L.
Linnaeus: 28 (1760)
Sonder: 526 (1862), under
Hydrocotyle
Schreiber: 1(1967)
Adamson: 1 (1951)
Burtt: 190 (1991)
Pimenov & Leonov: 33 (1993)
Schubert & B-E. van Wyk: 301 (1997)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species ± 50, mostly in southern Africa, but a few extending to Zimbabwe and Malawi and 1:
Centella asiatica
(L.) Urban, cosmopolitan and pantropical
Southern Africa
: Southwestern and eastern parts
References:
ADAMSON, R.S. 1951. A revision of the sub-genus
Solandra
of
Centella
.
Journal of South African Botany
17
BURTT, B.L. 1991.
Umbelliferae
of southern Africa: an introduction and annotated checklist.
Edinburgh Journal of Botany
48
LINNAEUS, C. 1760.
Plantae rariores africanae
. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
PIMENOV, M.G. & LEONOV, M.V. 1993.
The genera of the
Umbelliferae
. A nomenclator
. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
SCHREIBER, A. 1967.
Apiaceae
.
Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika
103
SCHUBERT, M.T.R. & VAN WYK, B-E. 1997. A revision of
Centella
series
Capenses
(
Apiaceae
).
Nordic Journal of Botany
17,3
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