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

Papaveraceae - Papaver L.

Description :

  • Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, from taproots, glaucous, green parts glabrous or hairy to bristly, sometimes spiny (Papaver aculeatum); sap milky or coloured
  • Leaves mostly radical or rosulate, entire, dentate or crenate, pinnately incised or divided, sometimes somewhat spiny, petiolate
  • Inflorescences with flowers solitary or cymose on elongated peduncles; bracteate; buds nodding or erect
  • Flowers hypogynous
  • Sepals 2 or 3, distinct, mostly caducous, sometimes persistent
  • Petals 4(-6), usually broadly obovate, pink, orange or red, red petals sometimes with black marks
  • Ovary of 4-24 connate carpels with parietal placentas, 1-locular or sometimes incompletely multilocular, clavate to globose, glabrous or bristly; ovules many; style 0; stigmas 3-18(-22), sessile, linear, arranged in conical to flat disc over placentas, velvety
  • Fruit a capsule, subglobose or oblong in outline, opening by 3-18 basipetal pores or short valves below stigmatic disc, or disc caducous
  • Seeds many, small, often reniform, with sculptured testa
  • x = 7 (6, 11) (aneuploids, high polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

  • Papaver L.
    • Linnaeus: 506 (1753)
    • Linnaeus: 224 (1754)
    • Harvey: 15 (1860)
    • Fedde: 288 (1909)
    • Fedde: 108 (1936)
    • Markgraf: 29 (1958)
    • Mowat & Walters: 247 (1964)
    • Merxmüller: 1 (1968)
    • Kadereit: 335 (1988)
    • Kadereit: 505 (1993)
    • Lidén: 4 (1995)
    • Kiger & Murray: 323 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 80, widespread in northern hemisphere of Old World, Europe, temperate Asia, also Australia and Africa, 1 indigenous in Cape Verde Islands and 1 in southern Africa
  • Southern Africa : Species 4, Papaver aculeatum Thunb., Namibia, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape; 3 others introduced as weeds of cultivation

References:

  • FEDDE, F. 1909. Papaveraceae - Hypecoideae et Papaveraceae - Papaveroideae . Das Pflanzenreich , Heft 40 (4,104)
  • FEDDE, F.F. 1936. Papaveraceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien , edn 2,17b
  • HARVEY, W.H. 1860. Papaveraceae . Flora capensis 1
  • KADEREIT, J.W. 1988. The affinities of the south-hemispherical Papaver aculeatum Thunb. ( Papaveraceae ). Botanische Jahrbücher 109, 3
  • KADEREIT, J.W. 1993. Papaveraceae . In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
  • KIGER, R.W. & MURRAY, D.F. 1997. Papaveraceae . Papaver . Flora of North America north of Mexico 3
  • LIDÉN, M. 1995. Papaveraceae . Flora of Ecuador 52
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum , edn 1. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum , edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • MARKGRAF, F. 1958. Papaveraceae . In G. Hegi, Illustrierte Flora von Mitteleuropa , edn 2, 4,1
  • MERXMÜLLER, H. 1968. Papaveraceae . Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 46
  • MOWAT, A.B. & WALTERS, S.M. 1964. Papaveraceae . Flora europaea 1

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