e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705326079524_6218941612346662" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705326079524_8059791566978896" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>Ajuga
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Lamiaceae - Ajugoideae - Ajuga L.

Description:

  • Perennial herbs, often decumbent or stoloniferous
  • Leaves mostly in a basal rosette, usually coarsely toothed to incised
  • Inflorescences terminal, spike-like, verticillate; verticils 2-many-flowered; bracts leaf-like, becoming smaller towards apex
  • Calyx short, subequally 5-fid or 5-toothed; tube campanulate
  • Corolla unequally 2-lipped; tube short, constricted near base with a ring of hairs within constriction; upper lip short, subentire, emarginate or 2-fid; lower lip large, spreading, 3-lobed, median lobe the largest, emarginate or 2-fid
  • Stamens 4, curved within upper lip, lower pair slightly longer; filaments linear; anthers 2-thecous, with thecae divergent, finally confluent
  • Ovary shortly 4-lobed nearly to middle; style 2-fid, lobes somewhat unequal
  • Nutlets obovoid, reticulate-rugose, attached by a broad oblique areole which extends beyond middle
  • x = 8 (7) (aneuploids, high polyploidy, B-chromosomes - 1 report)

Nomenclature:

  • Ajuga L.
    • Linnaeus: 561 (1753)
    • Linnaeus: 246 (1754)
    • Bentham: 597 (1848)
    • Briquet: 209 (1895)
    • Baker: 501 (1900)
    • Skan: 386 (1910)
    • Codd: 7 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 50, mainly in temperate areas of the Old World
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: Ajuga ophrydis Burch. ex Benth. in eastern parts of region: Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape

References:

  • BAKER, J.G. 1900. Verbenaceae, Labiatae. Flora of tropical Africa 5
  • BENTHAM, G.1848. Labiatae. In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 12. Victor Masson, Paris
  • BRIQUET, J. 1895-1897. Labiatae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4,3a
  • CODD, L.E. 1985. Lamiaceae. Flora of southern Africa 28
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum. Salvius, Stockholm
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum, edn 5. Salvius, Stockholm
  • SKAN, S.A. 1910. Labiatae. Flora capensis 5,1