Annual herbs, glabrous; stems prostrate, decumbent or erect, with slightly swollen nodes
Leaves: basal leaves crowded into a rosette, other leaves in false whorls on stem, linear to spathulate, sometimes slightly fleshy; stipules small and scarious or 0
Inflorescences axillary or terminal, umbellate or dichotomous cymes; flowers inconspicuous; pedicels short, strongly reflexed after flowering
Sepals 5, free, imbricate, green without, whitish within, margins hyaline
Petals 0
Stamens (3-) 5(-10), alternating with carpels or sepals, united basally by a very shallow ring of filament tissue; anthers versatile
Ovary 3-5(-8)-locular; ovules many per locule; styles 3(-5), free, very short, erect; stigma linear, papillate
Fruit a membranous, ellipsoidal, loculicidal capsule, longer than and included within persistent sepals
Seeds many, ± compressed, reniform to roundish, reddish to blackish brown; embryo curved; cotyledons oblong, fleshy
x = 9 (polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Mollugo L.
Linnaeus: 89 (1753)
Linnaeus: 39 (1754)
Fenzl: 375 (1836)
Sonder: 137 (1860)
Hutchinson & Dalziel: 114 (1927)
Phillips: 290 (1951)
Keay: 134 (1954)
Adamson: 13 (1958)
Jeffrey: 16 (1961)
Pitot: 751 (1965)
Friedrich: 15 (1966)
Bogle: 437 (1970)
Gonçalves: 302 (1970)
Gonçalves: 541 (1978)
Endress & Bittrich: 424 (1993)
Gilbert: 110 (1993)
Eliasson: 9 (1996)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 30, tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres, with a few species widespread as introduced weeds in temperate regions
Southern Africa: Species 6, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Swaziland, Free State, N KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Northern Cape
References:
ADAMSON, R.S. 1958. The South African species of Aizoaceae. IV. Mollugo, Pharnaceum, Coelanthum and Hypertelis. Journal of South African Botany 24
BOGLE, A.L. 1970. The genera of Molluginaceae and Aizoaceae in the southeastern United States. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 51
ELIASSON, U.H. 1996. Molluginaceae. Flora of Ecuador 55
ENDRESS, M.E. & BITTRICH, V. 1993. Molluginaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
FENZL, E. 1836. Monographie der Mollugineen und Steudelieen. Annalen des Wiener Museums der Naturgeschichte 1
FRIEDRICH, H.C. 1966. Molluginaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 26
GILBERT, M.G. 1993. Molluginaceae. Flora of Somalia 1
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