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

Euphorbiaceae - Crotonoideae - Gelonieae - Suregada Roxb. ex Rottler

Description :

  • Trees or shrubs; dioecious, rarely monoecious
  • Leaves alternate, sessile or subsessile, entire or crenate, gland-dotted, glabrous; stipules connate, caducous
  • Flowers in leaf-opposed, sessile or subsessile, cymose glomerules
  • Petals 0
  • Male flowers : sepals (4)5(-7), imbricate, often unequal, 3 outer ones concave and with blunt horn on back; disc shallowly basin-shaped, hairy; stamens 6-25(-60); filaments free; pistil 0
  • Female flowers : sepals similar to those of male; disc shallowly basin-shaped, sometimes bearing rudimentary staminodes, hairy; ovary (2)3(4)-locular, with 1 ovule in each locule, glabrous; styles (2)3(4), shortly bifid or lacerate
  • Fruit somewhat woody, globose, columella persistent, or 3-didymous, capsular or drupaceous, (2)3(4)-locular, or by abortion 1-locular
  • Seeds ovoid, with thin pulpy sarcostesta and crustaceous, smooth or foveolate-reticulate endotesta, ecarunculate; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat

Nomenclature:

  • Suregada Roxb. ex Rottler
    • Rottler: 206 (1803)
    • Merrill: 79 (1951)
    • Radcliffe-Smith: 376 (1987)
    • Webster: 102 (1994)
    • Radcliffe-Smith: 249 (1996)
  • Gelonium Roxb. ex Willd.
    • Willdenow: 831 (1806) non Gaertn.
    • Prain: 494 (1920)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 40, Old World tropics, 8 in Africa
  • Southern Africa : Species 3 in eastern parts

References:

  • MERRILL, E.D. 1951. On certain nomenclatural errors in the Euphorbiaceae . Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 32
  • PRAIN, D. 1920. Euphorbiaceae [in part]. Flora capensis 5, 2
  • RADCLIFFE-SMITH, A. 1987. Euphorbiaceae . Flora of tropical East Africa . Euphorbiaceae Part 1
  • RADCLIFFE-SMITH, A. 1996. Euphorbiaceae . Flora zambesiaca 9, 4
  • ROTTLER, J.P. 1803. Suregada . Der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin neue Schriften 4
  • WILLDENOW, C.L. 1806. Linnaeus' Species plantarum , edn 4,2. Nauk, Berlin
  • WEBSTER, G.L. 1994. Synopsis of the genera and suprageneric taxa of Euphorbiaceae . Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 81

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