Description:

• Shrubs, lianes, or herbs
• Leaves alternate, simple, entire to lobed, sometimes auriculate, rarely scaly; foliage usually with scattered chalk glands exuding water and calcium salts, and often with raised mucilage glands; stipules 0
• Inflorescence bracteate, racemose or often cymose (thyrsic), simple or compound; bracts often sheathing, dry and membranous; bracteoles 2(1)
• Flowers bisexual, regular, often heterostylous
• Calyx: sepals 5, ± fused into a 5- or 10-ribbed tube ending in 5 teeth or lobes, often membranous and petaloid, persistent
• Petals 5, connate or ± free, often persistent; lobes convolute
• Disc often present, sometimes as 5 glands alternating with stamens
• Stamens 5, opposite corolla lobes; filaments mostly free in Plumbaginoideae, basally adherent to petals in Staticoideae; anthers tetrasporangiate, dithecal, opening lengthwise
• Ovary superior, 5-carpellate, 1-locular, with 5 distinct styles or a single, apically lobed style; stigmas dry, papillate, capitate to cylindric; ovule solitary, basal, anatropous, bitegmic, crassinucellar, on a slender funicle
• Fruit a dry, membranous, 1-seeded achene, partly or wholly enclosed by the persistent calyx, or a circumscissile capsule sometimes splitting upwards into 5 valves
• Seed with a straight embryo and with copious endosperm often containing solitary starch grains
• Usually x = 6-9

Classification Notes:

• Two subfamilies are recognised, namely Plumbaginoideae including Plumbago L. and Dyerophytum Kuntze, and Staticoideae Kusn. including Afrolimon Lincz. and Limonium Mill. Both subfamilies are supported by the wood anatomical study of Carlquist & Colby (1996)

Nomenclature:

• Plumbaginaceae
  • Jussieu: 92 (1789) name conserved
  • Brown: 413 (1810)
  • Spach: 334 (1841)
  • Boissier: 617 (1848)
  • Oliver: 485 (1877)
  • Pax: 116 (1889)
  • Kuntze: 393 (1891)
  • Wright: 418 (1906)
  • Adamson: 665 (1950)
  • Rickett & Stafleu: 78 (1960)
  • Dyer: 488 (1961)
  • Dyer: 15 (1963)
  • Kubitzki: 523 (1993).
• Limoniaceae Lincz.
  • Linczevski: 166 (1979)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 27, species 650, distributed throughout the world, especially in the Mediterranean and Irano-Turanian regions
• Southern Africa: Genera 4, species 24

References:

• ADAMSON, R.S. 1950. Plumbaginaceae Lindl. In R.S. Adamson & T.M. Salter, Flora of the Cape Peninsula. Juta, Cape Town
• BOISSIER, P.E. 1848. Plumbaginaceae. In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 12. V. Masson & Sons, Paris
• BROWN, R. 1810. Plumbagineae Juss. Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae van-Diemen 1. J. Johnson & Co., London
• CARLQUIST, S. & COLBY, J.B. 1996. Wood anatomy of Plumbaginaceae. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 123(2)
• DYER, R.A. 1961. Plumbaginaceae. Limonium. Bothalia 7
• DYER, R.A. 1963. Plumbaginaceae. Flora of southern Africa 26
• JUSSIEU, A.L. DE. 1789. Plumbagines, les dentelaires. Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita. Herissant & Barrois, Paris
• KUBITZKI, K. 1993. Plumbaginaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons, Vol. 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• KUNTZE, O. 1891. Plumbaginaceae. Revisio generum plantarum 2. Arthur Felix, Leipzig
• LINCZEVSKI, I.A. 1979. Notulae de Limoniaceis. Novosti Sistematiki Vysshikh Rasttenij 16
• OLIVER, D. 1877. Plumbaginaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 3
• PAX, F. 1889. Plumbaginaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4,1. W. Engelmann, Leipzig
• RICKETT, H.W. & STAFLEU, F.A. 1960. Nomina generica conservanda et rejicienda Spermatophytorum IV. Plumbaginaceae. Taxon 9
• SPACH, E. 1841. Plumbageae. Histoire naturelle des végétaux. Phanérogames 10. Roret, Paris
• WRIGHT, C.H. 1906. Plumbaginaceae. Flora capensis 4,1

Resources:

• Key to Plumbaginaceae genera

• Plumbaginaceae genera: