e-Key v3 - Burnatia
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Alismataceae - Burnatia Micheli

Description :

  • Perennial, aquatic, scapose, dioecious herbs; rhizome bulbous, covered with short thin roots
  • Leaves submerged or erect; petioles up to 0.4 m long; blades linear to lanceolate, base decurrent to rounded
  • Inflorescence a 3-merous compound umbel, sometimes reduced and few-flowered, overtopping leaves, with 3 basal acuminate bracts which at first envelop umbel in bud; bracts scarious, semipersistent, upper bracts reduced or 0
  • Flowers 3 in a whorl, evenly spaced, pedicelled
  • Male flowers with 3 concave sepals; petals 3, smaller than sepals; stamens 9; sterile carpels ± 12
  • Female flowers with 3 concave sepals; petals 0 or minute; staminodes 0-12; carpels many, closely arranged on a small receptacle, compressed; stigma ventral, discoid, papillose, subsessile; ovule basal
  • Achenes obovate-orbicular, laterally compressed, with 2 narrow, circular wings

Nomenclature:

  • Burnatia Micheli
    • Micheli: 81 (1881)
    • Obermeyer: 99 (1966)
    • Cook: 27 (1990)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 1: Burnatia enneandra Micheli, tropical and southern Africa
  • Southern Africa : N Namibia and N KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • COOK, C.D.K. 1990. Aquatic plant book . SPB Academic Publishing, The Hague
  • MICHELI, M. 1881. Alismaceae . In A.L.P.P. de Candolle, Monographiae phanerogamarum 3. Masson, Paris
  • OBERMEYER, A.A. 1966. Alismataceae . Flora of southern Africa 1