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

Convolvulaceae - Convolvulus L.

Description :

  • Herbs, spreading, erect or twining, sometimes with woody rootstock
  • Leaves sessile or petiolate, often cordate or hastate, entire to variously incised
  • Flowers pedunculate, axillary, solitary or in few-flowered cymes, with a pair of short bracts on upper portion of peduncle
  • Calyx of 5 sepals, usually subequal
  • Corolla ± funnel-shaped to campanulate; limb plicate, 5-angled to obscurely 5-lobed
  • Stamens 5, arising near base of corolla, included; filaments linear, often dilated at base; anthers oblong, sagittate or cordate at base; pollen smooth
  • Disc annular
  • Ovary 2-locular, with 2 ovules in each locule; style included; stigmas 2, linear-terete, subclavate, slightly dilated or filiform
  • Fruit a globose capsule, dehiscing irregularly, or into 4 valves
  • Seeds rounded on back, flat on two lateral faces, or irregularly angled, glabrous, sometimes shortly tuberculate or with transverse ridges
  • x = 15 (11, 12) (aneuploids, polyploidy)
  • Back to Calystegia

Nomenclature:

  • Convolvulus L.
    • Linnaeus: 153 (1753)
    • Meeuse: 666 (1957)
    • Meeuse & Welman: 35 (2000)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species ± 250, cosmopolitan, mainly temperate and subtropical regions
  • Southern Africa : Species 14, widespread in both summer- and winter-rainfall areas, 1 introduced

References:

  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum , edn 1. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • MEEUSE, A.D.J. 1957. The South African Convolvulaceae . Bothalia 6
  • MEEUSE, A.D.J. & WELMAN, W.G. 2000. Convolvulaceae . Flora of southern Africa 28,1