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

Brassicaceae - Hesperideae - *Alyssum L.

Description :

  • Annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs; vegetative parts generally densely stellately hairy
  • Leaves simple, entire or dentate
  • Inflorescence dense, racemose or paniculate
  • Sepals erect-spreading, not saccate
  • Petals entire or emarginate, clawed, yellow
  • Stamens 6; all or only some filaments with appendages
  • Nectaries 4, on either side of each short filament, triangular or filiform
  • Fruit a circular, ovate or obovate silicula; valves flat or eventually inflated, faintly net-veined, glabrous or hairy
  • Seeds 2-16, flattened, mostly narrowly winged; cotyledons accumbent
  • x = 8 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • *Alyssum L.
    • Linnaeus: 650 (1753)
    • Linnaeus: 293 (1754)
    • Sonder: 23 (1860)
    • Schulz: 490 (1936)
    • Phillips: 352 (1951)
    • Ball: 297 (1964)
    • Marais: 99 (1970)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 168, mostly Mediterranean, some in central Europe and Asia
  • Southern Africa : Species 1: * Alyssum minutum Schltdl. ex DC., naturalised in Namaqualand and the Western Cape

References:

  • BALL, P.W. 1964. Cruciferae . Alyssum [and other genera]. Flora europaea 1
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum . Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum , edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • MARAIS, W. 1970. Cruciferae . Flora of southern Africa 13
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants, edn 2. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • SCHULZ, O.E. 1936. Cruciferae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien II,17b
  • SONDER, O.W. 1860. Crucifereae . Flora capensis 1