Herbaceous, fleshy, perennial root-parasites, without chlorophyll and roots, arising from variously shaped underground tubers, forming contact to host root and producing 1 or more unbranched inflorescence-bearing stems with or without leaves in lower part, upper part bearing scale-like leaves; plants monoecious or dioecious
Leaves spirally arranged or distichous, decussate or verticillate, scale-like, coloured, sometimes much reduced
Inflorescences many-flowered, much branched or simple, spadix-like; bracts scaly, ± transformed and reduced, triangular or peltate or reduced to a clavate structure, caducous or persistent
Flowers unisexual, rarely bisexual
Male flowers with a perianth of 3-9 tepals; stamens 2 or 3(4), free or confluent into a synandrium, opposite perianth segments; anthers dehiscing longitudinally or by apical pores
Female flowers with 3 or 0 perianth segments; ovary ± inferior, 3- or 4-merous, with 1 pendulous ovule (represented by an embryo sac without nucellus or integuments) in each locule; placentas and carpels often not recognisable; style 1, columnar or much reduced; stigma inconspicuous or ± capitellate
Fruit small, a 1-seeded achene
Seed with large-celled granular endosperm
Nomenclature:
Balanophoraceae
Richard: 404, 429 (1822) as Balanophoreae
Harvey: 572 (1862)
Eichler: 117 (1873)
Hooker: 232 (1880)
Engler: 243 (1889)
Hemsley: 434 (1911)
Marloth: 170 (1913)
Harms: 296 (1935)
Hansen: 359 (1986)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Genera 18, species ± 43, widely distributed in the tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres; in Africa 6 genera and 6 species
Southern Africa: Genera 2, species 2
References:
EICHLER, A.W. 1873. Balanophoraceae. In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 17. Masson & Sons, Paris
ENGLER, A. 1889. Balanophoraceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,1
HANSEN, B. 1986. The Balanophoraceae of Continental Africa. Botanische Jahrbücher 106,3
HARMS, H. 1935. Balanophoraceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 2,16b
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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.
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