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

Rubiaceae - Ixoroideae - Gardenieae - Gardeniinae - Rothmannia Thunb.

Description :

  • Unarmed shrubs or small trees
  • Leaves opposite or occasionally ternate, petiolate, elliptic; stipules ovate, hairy within
  • Flowers solitary, sessile
  • Calyx with tube usually turbinate to cylindrical; limb tube velvety inside; lobes present or 0, erect
  • Corolla 5-lobed, white with maroon streaks or speckles; lobes obovate-oblong; tube cylindric below, campanulate above, hairy within lower portions
  • Stamens 5, arising in corolla mouth, subexserted; anthers sessile, linear
  • Disc tumid
  • Ovary 1-locular, with 2 parietal placentas opposite each other and sometimes partially fused; ovules many; style glabrous, linear, exserted; pollen presenter narrowly fusiform to club-shaped with stigmatic surface confined to shortly bilobed apex
  • Fruit globose, sometimes crowned with persistent calyx limb
  • Seeds many, smooth, embedded in pulpy placental tissue, forming a solid mass
  • x = 11

Nomenclature:

  • Rothmannia Thunb.
    • Thunberg: 65 (1776)
    • Phillips: 726 (1951)
    • Bridson & Verdcourt: 511 (1988)
  • Gardenia Ellis sect. Rothmannia (Thunb.) Endl.
    • Endlicher: 562 (1838)
    • Sonder: 4 (1865)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 40, tropical Africa, Asia and Seychelles
  • Southern Africa : Species 3, in eastern regions, absent from Namibia, Free State, Lesotho, Northern and Western Cape

References:

  • BRIDSON, D.M. & VERDCOURT, B. 1988. Flora of tropical East Africa . Rubiaceae (part 2)
  • ENDLICHER, S.L. 1838. Genera plantarum 8. Fr. Beck, Vienna
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • SONDER, O.W. 1865. Rubiaceae . Flora capensis 3
  • THUNBERG, C.P. 1776. Rothmannia . Kongelige Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar, Stockholm 37