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

Amaranthaceae - Amaranthoideae - Amarantheae - Aervinae - Pupalia Juss.

Description :

  • Annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs, often trichotomously branched, sometimes scandent
  • Leaves opposite, broad, entire, petiolate
  • Inflorescence a spiciform bracteate thyrse, terminal on stem and branches, each bract subtending a partial inflorescence of 1-more fertile bisexual flowers which are subtended on each side by modified sterile flowers formed of 3-more stalked clusters of hooked spines; bracts persistent, finally ± deflexed, entire; partial inflorescence falling as a burr in fruit
  • Tepals 5, free, lanceolate, shortly mucronate, loosely woolly
  • Stamens 5; filaments linear, connate at base around ovary; pseudostaminodes 0; anthers 2-thecous
  • Ovary subglobose; ovule solitary, pendulous, basal; style slender; stigma capitate
  • Capsule thin-walled, irregularly ruptured below firm apex by developing seed
  • Seed oblong-ovoid or ovoid, black, slightly compressed; perisperm/endosperm copious
  • x = 10 (13) (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Pupalia Juss.
    • Jussieu: 132 (1803) name conserved
    • Hooker: 31 (1880)
    • Schinz: 108 (1893)
    • Baker & Clarke: 47 (1909)
    • Cooke & Wright: 422 (1910)
    • Schinz: 48 (1934)
    • Townsend: 131 (1979)
    • Townsend: 73 (1985)
    • Townsend: 88 (1988)
    • Townsend: 84 (1993)
  • Pupal Adans.
    • Adanson: 268, 596 (1763)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 4, tropics of Old World from Africa to Malaysia and the Philippines
  • Southern Africa : Species 2, Namibia, Botswana, the northern provinces, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern and Eastern Cape

References:

  • ADANSON, M. 1763. Famille les Amarantes, Amaranthi. Familles des plantes 2. Vincent, Paris
  • BAKER, J.G. & CLARKE, C.B. 1909. Amarantaceae . Flora of tropical Africa 6,1
  • COOKE, T. & WRIGHT, C.H. 1910. Amarantaceae . Flora capensis 5,1
  • HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Amarantaceae . In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
  • JUSSIEU, A.L. DE. 1803. Annales and mémoires du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris 2
  • SCHINZ, H. 1893. Amarantaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,1a
  • SCHINZ, H. 1934. Amaranthaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien , edn 2, 16c
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1979. Notes on Amaranthaceae 5. A survey of Pupalia Juss. Kew Bulletin 34
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1985. Flora of tropical East Africa . Amaranthaceae
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1988. Amaranthaceae . Flora zambesiaca 9,1
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993. Amaranthaceae . In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin