e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1710148755010_5920454519938096" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Gib<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1710148755010_07966797466835884" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>baeum
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Mesembryanthemaceae - Ruschioideae - Delosperma Group - Gibbaeum Haw.

Description:

  • Dwarf, succulent perennials forming small, dense clumps or mats, up to 200 mm high; usually with a short woody rootstock, occasionally with fleshy roots
  • Leaves often very unequal and variable in shape, connate to different degrees, forming ± spherical bodies or trigonous with an apical chin to digitiform; light to dark green, bluish green, reddish, metallic grey, whitish green or grey-white; epidermis minutely hairy or with long dense hairs, more rarely smooth; stomata, and in most cases, subsidiary cells, sunken
  • Flowers solitary, terminal, pedicellate, ebracteate, 20(80 mm in diameter; opening in afternoon and closing in evening
  • Sepals 6(9, unequal
  • Petals 1(3-seriate, linear, free, white, pink, or different shades of purple
  • Stamens: staminodes present or 0, often bearded at base
  • Nectary of 6(?-9) large, separate, crenulate glands
  • Ovary often somewhat conical; placentas parietal; stigmas 6(9, usually stout and subulate, plumose
  • Fruit a 6(9-locular capsule, of Drosanthemum type; convex or conical with prominent sutures; valves deltoid, spreading, reflexed when expanded; expanding keels parallel or diverging, rarely toothed, terminating in broad wings; covering membranes present; closing bodies 0
  • Seeds many in each locule, acutely ovoid, smooth
  • x = 9 (polyploidy)
  • Flowering from late winter to early summer
  • Distinguishing characters:
    • Dwarf perennials
    • Leaves subequal to unequal united into bodies with an oblique fissure separating the leaves of a pair, often velvety
    • Flowers purple or white

Nomenclature:

  • Gibbaeum Haw.
    • Haworth: 104 (1821)
    • Brown: 273 (1921)
    • Brown: 129, 151 (1922)
    • Nel: (1953)
    • Herre: 162 (1971)
    • Frandsen: 14 (1998)
    • Smith et al.: 104 (1998)
    • Van Jaarsveld & Hammer: 14 (1998)
  • Imitaria N.E.Br.
    • Brown: 348 (1927c)
    • Herre: 178 (1971)
    • Hartmann: 1 (1993)
  • Rimaria N.E.Br.
    • Brown: 413 (1925)
  • Mentocalyx N.E.Br.
    • Brown: 251 (1927a)
  • Argeta N.E.Br.
    • Brown: 113 (1927b)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa: Species 16, mostly found growing in the Little Karoo, Western Cape and adjacent areas, it only extends peripherally into the Northern Cape

References:

  • BROWN, N.E. 1921. Mesembryanthemum and some new genera separated from it. Gardeners' Chronicle: 70
  • BROWN, N.E. 1922. Mesembryanthemum and some new genera separated from it. Gardeners' Chronicle: 71
  • BROWN, N.E. 1925. Mesembryanthemum and some new genera separated from it. Gardeners' Chronicle 78
  • BROWN, N.E. 1927a. Mesembryanthemum and some new genera separated from it. Gardeners' Chronicle 81
  • BROWN, N.E. 1927b. Mesembryanthemum and some new genera separated from it. Gardeners' Chronicle 82
  • BROWN, N.E. 1927c. Two new Mesembryanthemaceae. Journal of Botany, British and Foreign 65
  • FRANDSEN, R. 1998. The genus Gibbaeum and its habitat at the Little Karoo. Aloe 35
  • HARTMANN, H.E.K. & GÖLLING, H. 1993. A monograph of the genus Glottiphyllum (Mesembryanthema, Aizoaceae). Bradleya 11
  • HAWORTH, A.H. 1821. Revisiones plantarum succulentarum. R. & A. Taylor, London
  • HERRE, H. 1971. The genera of the Mesembryanthemaceae: 162, 178. Tafelberg, Cape Town
  • NEL, C.G. 1953. In P.G. Jordaan & E.W. Shurly (eds.), The Gibbaeum handbook. A genus of highly succulent plants, native to South Africa. Blanford Press, London
  • SMITH, G.F., CHESSELET, P., VAN JAARSVELD, E.J., HARTMANN, H., HAMMER, S., VAN WYK, B-.E., BURGOYNE, P., KLAK, C. & KURZWEIL, H. 1998. Mesembs of the world. Briza, Pretoria
  • VAN JAARSVELD, E.J. & HAMMER, S.A. 1996. Gibbaeum johnstonii, a new species from the Little Karoo. Bradleya 14