Herbs, undershrubs, rarely entirely woody; often with sparse milky juice
Leaves
alternate, sometimes radical, opposite or whorled, simple; stipules 0
Flowers
bisexual, rarely unisexual by abortion, irregular, solitary and axillary, or in spikes or racemes
Calyx
5-lobed, adnate to ovary
Corolla
united, 1- or 2-lipped; lips reversed by a twisting of the pedicel; lobes 5, valvate
Stamens
5, alternate with corolla lobes; filaments free or arising on base of corolla; anthers cohering into a tube around style or rarely free (
Cyphia
)
Ovary
± inferior, 2-locular, rarely imperfectly divided; ovules 1-many, axile; style simple or 2-lobed, with ring of hairs
Fruit
capsular and variably dehiscent
Seeds
1-many, albuminous; embryo straight
Classification Notes:
Lobeliaceae
(incl.
Cyphiaceae
) sometimes classified under
Campanulaceae
in broad sense
Nomenclature:
Lobeliaceae
Sonder: 530 (1865) under
Campanulaceae
Thulin: 116 (1983)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Genera ± 30, species ± 1000; cosmopolitan but mainly tropics and subtropics of the New World
Southern Africa
: Genera 5, species ± 134
References:
SONDER, W. 1865.
Campanulaceae
.
Flora capensis
3
THULIN, M. 1983.
Lobeliaceae
.
Flora zambesiaca
7,1
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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