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

Lamiaceae - Nepetoideae - Ocimeae - Plectranthinae - Pycnostachys Hook.

Description :

  • Perennial, erect herbs or soft shrubs
  • Leaves sometimes whorled, toothed or crenate
  • Inflorescences terminal on main or lateral branches; verticils densely crowded; flowers blue or mauve, rarely whitish; bracts small, distinct from leaves
  • Calyx subequally 5-toothed; teeth subulate, rigid, spinescent
  • Corolla bilabiate; tube cylindric below, enlarging near throat, deflexed; upper lip 4-lobed, shorter than the lower; lower lip large, boat-shaped
  • Stamens 4, didynamous, declinate, arising in corolla throat and lying in lower lip; filaments shortly united at base
  • Disc produced in front
  • Style slender, shortly 2-fid at apex, slightly exceeding stamens in length
  • Nutlets ovoid, black or brown
  • x = 17 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Pycnostachys Hook.
    • Hooker: t. 202 (1825)
    • Bentham: 61 (1833)
    • Bentham: 83 (1848)
    • Bentham: 1177 (1876)
    • Briquet: 350 (1897)
    • Baker: 378 (1900)
    • Cooke: 290 (1910)
    • Codd: 131 (1985)
  • Echinostachys E.Mey.
    • Meyer: 243 (1837)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 37, in tropical Africa and Madagascar
  • Southern Africa : Species 3, N Botswana, Northern Province, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and to the Kentani area in Eastern Cape

References:

  • BAKER, J.G. 1900. Verbenaceae , Labiatae . Flora of tropical Africa 5
  • BENTHAM, G. 1832-1836. Labiatarum genera et species . James Ridgeway and Sons, Piccadilly
  • BENTHAM, G.1848. Labiatae . In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 12. Victor Masson, Paris
  • BENTHAM, G. 1876. Labiatae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 2. Lovell Reeve & Co., Covent Garden
  • BRIQUET, J. 1895-1897. Labiatae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4,3a
  • CODD, L.E. 1985. Lamiaceae . Flora of southern Africa 28
  • COOKE, T. 1910. Labiatae . Flora capensis 5,1
  • HOOKER, W.J. 1825. Pycnostachys . Exotic flora 3. Blackwood, Edinburgh
  • MEYER, E. 1838. Labiatae . Commentariorum de plantis Africae australioris . Leopold Voss, Leipzig