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

Boraginaceae - Wellstedioideae - Wellstedia Balf.f.

Description :

  • Dwarf shrubs, densely, silky hairy with appressed hairs
  • Branches decumbent or ascending
  • Leaves alternate, oblanceolate
  • Flowers in dense, scorpioid cymes or solitary, well-separated, on lax branches; small, regular
  • Calyx deeply 4-lobed
  • Corolla pink or white, with a short, campanulate, membranous, 8-nerved tube, slightly constricted at throat; lobes 4, ovate, ± as long as tube
  • Stamens arising in corolla throat, shorter than corolla lobes; filaments linear; anthers subglobose, ± as long as filaments, with 2 parallel thecae dehiscing introrsely
  • Disc none
  • Ovary bilocular, compressed, densely hairy, with a single ovule in each locule; style terminal, 2-fid at apex; stigmas small, globose
  • Fruit a capsule, loculicidally dehiscent
  • Seeds without endosperm

Nomenclature:

  • Wellstedia Balf.f.
    • Balfour: 407 (1884)
    • Gürke: 131 (1897)
    • Pilger: 558 (1912)
    • Phillips: 633 (1951)
    • Friedrich-Holzhammer: P121:1 (1967) as Wellstediaceae [only one]
    • Hunt: t. 3665 (1969)
    • Thulin & Johanssen: 80 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 4, 3 in Somalia, Socotra and Ethiopia
  • Southern Africa : Species 1: Wellstedia dinteri Pilg., Namibia and northern Namaqualand (Northern Cape)

References:

  • BALFOUR, I.B. 1884. Diagnoses plantarum novarum phanerogamarum socotrensium. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 12
  • FRIEDRICH-HOLZHAMMER, M. 1967. Wellstediaceae . Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 121
  • GÜRKE, M. 1897. Borraginaceae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4, 3a
  • HUNT, D.R. 1969. Wellstedia socotrana , W. dinteri var. dinteri , W. dinteri var. gracilior . Hooker's Icones Plantarum 37
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • PILGER, R. 1912. Die Gattung Wellstedia in Südwestafrika. Botanische Jahrbücher 46
  • THULIN, M. & JOHANSSON, A.N.B. 1996. Taxonomy and biogeography of the anomalous genus Wellstedia . In L.J.G. van der Maesen et al., The biodiversity of African plants . Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands

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