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

Verbenaceae - *Duranta L.

Description :

  • Shrubs, unarmed or spiny, or small trees
  • Leaves opposite or whorled, entire or toothed
  • Flowers irregular, few to many in terminal and axillary racemes or panicles; bracts small
  • Calyx shorter than corolla tube, truncate or 5-toothed; tube elongate-campanulate, 5-ribbed, sometimes pubescent; teeth, when present, shortly linear or minute
  • Corolla with straight or curved tube; limb 2-lipped, with 5 unequal lobes
  • Stamens 4 or 5, slightly didynamous, arising at or above middle of corolla tube, included; filaments linear, longer than anthers; anthers with distinct parallel thecae
  • Ovary globose, ± perfectly 8-locular; style usually shorter than corolla tube, linear; stigma of 4 cushion-like lobes
  • Fruit drupaceous, completely or nearly enclosed in accrescent calyx; epicarp fleshy; endocarp bony; pyrenes 4, each 2-locular and 2-seeded
  • Seeds without albumen; testa membranous
  • x = 6, 8, 17 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • *Duranta L.
    • Linnaeus: 637 (1753)
    • Linnaeus: 284 (1754)
    • Pearson: 210 (1901)
    • Phillips: 638 (1951)
    • Moldenke & Moldenke: 277 (1983)
    • Verdcourt: 48 (1992)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 30, Caribbean to South America
  • Southern Africa : * Duranta erecta L., native in Argentina, is a cultivated, decorative shrub, occurring as an escape in Botswana, Northern Province, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum . Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum , edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • MOLDENKE, H.N. & MOLDENKE A.L. 1983. Verbenaceae . Flora of Ceylon 4
  • PEARSON, H.H.W. 1901. Verbenaceae . Flora capensis 5,1
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1992. Flora of tropical East Africa . Verbenaceae