e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1710495348063_12090181587060411" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Kra<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1710495348063_5814727066988208" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>ussia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Rubiaceae - Ixoroideae - Octotropideae - Kraussia Harv.

Description:

  • Shrubs
  • Leaves petiolate, oblong or somewhat lanceolate, obtuse to acuminate; stipules triangular, acuminate
  • Flowers pedunculate; in simple, axillary, bracteolate cymes
  • Calyx: limb divided nearly to base into 4-6 triangular lobes; lobes rounded to acute; tube shallowly campanulate, glabrous to puberulous
  • Corolla 5-lobed, white; lobes oblong-elliptic, longer than tube; tube campanulate, villous within
  • Stamens 5, arising in corolla mouth, exserted; anthers subsessile, dorsifixed, linear, connective distinctly apiculate
  • Disc annular
  • Ovary 2-locular, with 1 or 2 pendulous ovules in each locule, from placentas attached near top of septum; style short, thick, cylindric, glabrous; stigmatic club long, fusiform, with 10 membranous, narrow, undulate, ciliate wings, exserted
  • Fruit globose, ± size of pea, somewhat fleshy, 2-locular, with many, succulent, red granules; calyx limb persistent
  • Seeds 2-6, ± ovoid, usually with 1 flattened face, finely reticulate
  • x = 11 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

  • Kraussia Harv.
    • Harvey: 21 (1842)
    • Sonder: 22 (1865) in part
    • Phillips: 728 (1951)
    • Bridson & Verdcourt: 700 (1988)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 3, tropical Africa
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: Kraussia floribunda Harv., Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • BRIDSON, D.M. & VERDCOURT, B. 1988. Flora of tropical East Africa. Rubiaceae (part 2)
  • HARVEY, W.H. 1842. Descriptions of several new genera of South African plants. In W.J. Hooker, The London Journal of Botany 1
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • SONDER, O.W. 1865. Rubiaceae. Flora capensis 3