Annual or perennial herbs with annual shoots, prostrate or ascending to erect, with several semisucculent stems often tinged with red, with numerous prominent, linear, whitish raphides especially on leaves, minutely asperous on nodes and inflorescence; containing betalains
Leaves opposite, linear to oblanceolate or elliptic, base sometimes attenuate into ill-defined petiole, margin entire; stipules 0
Inflorescence axillary or terminal, laxly dichasial-cymose to densely umbellate; peduncle present or absent; bracts minute or obsolete
Flowers bisexual or rarely unisexual, regular
Sepals 5, free
Petals (staminodes) 0
Stamens 5-15(-20), arising just below gynoecium; filaments free, widening below; anthers 2-thecous, opening by longitudinal slits
Gynoecium superior, apocarpous, of (3-)5(6) or 10-15 free carpels, each with solitary ovule and style on inner margin
Fruit a cluster of 3-15 ± heterocarpic mericarps: either muricate or almost smooth with thin, ventral sutures
LINNAEUS, C. 1771. Mantissa plantarum. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
PAX, F. & HOFFMANN, K. 1934. Aizoaceae. Tribe Gisekieae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edn 2, 16c
PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants, edn 2. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
ROHWER, J.G. 1993. Phytolaccaceae. Genus of uncertain affinity. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
The system is still under development, so you may find a few bugs/issues. If you do, please report it via the error reporting button available in various sections of the website or provide us with any useful feedback you may have via the ‘Give us feedback’ option available in the sidebar menu. You can create a free account for yourself by clicking on the user profile icon which will take you through to the login page. Here you can choose the ‘Create an account’ option or simply fill in your details if you have an account already. Having an account on Biodiversity Advisor will provide users with free access to biodiversity resources.
In future, Team SANBI will be able to log in using their day-to-day login details, BGIS users will be able to use their existing accounts and details, and general users will be able to log in using their LinkedIn profile, but for now you will need to create an account.
