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

Meliaceae - Entandrophragma C.DC.

Description :

  • Trees, usually large, monoecious
  • Leaves paripinnate, crowded at tips of branches; leaflets entire
  • Flowers unisexual; in axillary panicles
  • Calyx saucer-shaped, 5-lobed
  • Petals 5, contorted
  • Disc in the form of 10 indistinct or distinct short ridges connecting ovary to base of staminal tube
  • Stamens 10; filaments connate into an urceolate tube ± half as long as petals
  • Ovary subglobose, 5-locular, with 4-12 pendulous ovules in two rows in each locule; style short, cylindric; stigma discoid with 5 radiating stigmatic lines
  • Fruit a large, woody, septifragal capsule, pendulous, valves separating from apex, persistent at base; columella massive, softly woody, 5-angled
  • Seeds 3-5 per locule, with a terminal wing
  • x = 9 or 18 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Entandrophragma C.DC.
    • Candolle: 582 (1894)
    • White & Styles: 289 (1963)
    • White & Styles: 59 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 11 in Africa
  • Southern Africa : Species 2: Entandrophragma caudatum (Sprague) Sprague, Northern Province, E. spicatum (C.DC.) Sprague, Namibia

References:

  • CANDOLLE, C. DE. 1894. Trichilia pterophylla . Bulletin de l'Herbier Boissier 2
  • WHITE, F. & STYLES, B.T. 1963. Meliaceae . Flora zambesiaca 2
  • WHITE, F. & STYLES, B.T. 1986. Meliaceae . Flora of southern Africa 18, 3