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

Apiaceae - Apioideae - Itasina Raf.

Description :

  • Delicate perennial herbs, sometimes appearing annual, glabrous, with fleshy, cylindric roots
  • Leaves basal, filiform or grass-like; cauline, absent or few, narrowly linear
  • Flowers in compound umbels; involucres of few bracts
  • Calyx with ovate-acuminate teeth
  • Petals obovate, with a long, inflexed apex, keeled on face
  • Disc conical
  • Stamens longer than petals; filaments linear; anthers elliptic, subdidynamous
  • Styles spreading, subterete
  • Fruit oblong, ribbed, crowned with persistent styles; mericarps oblong, semiterete, flat on face, with 5 prominent ribs; oil ducts 6, 2 on inner face; carpophore 0
  • Seeds semiterete

Nomenclature:

  • Itasina Raf.
    • Rafinesque: 51 (1840)
    • Sonder: 547 (1862), under Oenanthe
    • Wolff: 139, 369 (1927), under Thunbergiella
    • Burtt: 92 (1988)
    • Burtt: 243 (1991)
    • Pimenov & Leonov: 63 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa : Species 1: Itasina filifolia (Thunb.) Raf., Western Cape eastwards to about Humansdorp (SW Eastern Cape)

References:

  • BURTT, B.L. 1988. op. cit. XIV. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 45
  • BURTT, B.L. 1991. Umbelliferae of southern Africa: an introduction and annotated checklist. Edinburgh Journal of Botany 48
  • PIMENOV, M.G. & LEONOV, M.V. 1993. The genera of the Umbelliferae . A nomenclator . Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • RAFINESQUE, C.S. 1840. The good book: 51. Eleutherium of knowledge, Philadelphia
  • SONDER, W. 1862. Umbelliferae . Flora capensis 2
  • WOLFF, H. 1927. Umbelliferae . Das Pflanzenreich IV. 228 (Heft 90)