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

Apocynaceae - Asclepiadoideae - Asclepiadeae - Astephanus R.Br.

Description :

  • Slender perennial twiners
  • Leaves petiolate
  • Flowers in small, subaxillary umbels
  • Sepals usually separate to near base, without scales
  • Corolla 5-lobed, with campanulate tube, longer than sepals, sometimes angled, with 5 patches of hair within
  • Corona 0
  • Staminal column arising from near base of corolla
  • Anthers 2-locular, with short, ovate, erect, membranous appendages, not or only shortly spurred at base
  • Pollinia oblong; caudicles very short
  • Follicles solitary by abortion, terete-fusiform, acuminate
  • Seeds crowned with a tuft of hairs

Nomenclature:

  • Astephanus R.Br.
    • Brown: 43 (1810)
    • Brown: 547 (1907)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 30, Africa and America
  • Southern Africa : Species 2, Western and Eastern Cape

References:

  • BROWN, N.E. 1907. Asclepiadeae . Flora capensis 4,1
  • BROWN, R. 1810. On the Asclepiadeae , a natural order of plants separated from the Apocineae of Jussieu. Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society 1