Annuals associated with water, erect, glabrous, somewhat soft and sparsely branched
Leaves
alternate, simple, entire, shortly petioled or subsessile, lanceolate to oblanceolate; stipules 0
Flowers
bisexual, regular, in dense, bracteate terminal spikes
Calyx
as long as corolla, 5-partite, persistent; lobes broadly elliptic, imbricate
Corolla
5-lobed; tube short, broader than long; lobes ovate-oblong, about as long as tube, imbricate
Stamens
5, arising in middle of corolla tube, alternating with petals, included; filaments much shorter than anthers; anthers 2-thecous, almost quadrate in outline, opening by longitudinal slits
Ovary
half-inferior, 2-locular, with many ovules in each locule from axile placentas; stigma shortly bifid
Fruit
a depressed, subglobose capsule, dehiscing transversely, operculum falling with calyx lobes
Seeds
ellipsoid, sculptured
Nomenclature:
Sphenoclea
Gaertn.
Gaertner: 113, t. 24/5 (1788)
Thulin: 114 (1983)
Welman: 31 (2000)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species 2
Southern Africa
: Species 1:
Sphenoclea zeylanica
Gaertn., N Namibia, N Botswana, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal
References:
GAERTNER, J. 1788.
Sphenoclea
.
De fructibus et seminibus plantarum
1. Academia Carolina, Stuttgart/ Schramm, Tübingen
THULIN, M. 1983.
Sphenocleaceae
.
Flora zambesiaca
7,1
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