e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707811037681_3842473439558749" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Ce<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707811037681_6941853324452814" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>ntema
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Amaranthaceae - Amaranthoideae - Amarantheae - Aervinae - Centema Hook.f.

Description:

  • Erect perennial herbs or subshrubs; stems sometimes tuberculate
  • Leaves opposite, entire
  • Inflorescences pedunculate or sessile spike-like bracteate thyrses, each bract with a partial inflorescence of 1 or 2 bisexual flowers and 2 or 3 modified sterile flowers consisting of single very rapidly developing spines, partial inflorescence falling as a 2- or 3-spined burr
  • Tepals 5, inner becoming narrower, outer several-nerved, hardened at base, woolly on back
  • Stamens 5, unequal; filaments filiform, flattened, connate at extreme base; pseudostaminodes 0; anthers narrow, 2-thecous
  • Ovary ± compressed, glabrous; ovule solitary, basal; style slender, with 2 short or elongated stigma branches
  • Capsule scarcely compressed, delicate except for a small firm area about base of style, irregularly ruptured by developing seed, thin-walled, indehiscent
  • Seed ± horseshoe-shaped; perisperm/endosperm copious

Nomenclature:

  • Centema Hook.f.
    • Hooker: 31 (1880)
    • Schinz: 107 (1893)
    • Baker & Clarke: 55 (1909)
    • Cooke & Wright: 418 (1910) in part
    • Schinz: 547 (1912)
    • Schinz: 45 (1934)
    • Townsend: 70 (1988)
    • Townsend: 83 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 2, southern tropical Africa
  • Southern Africa: Species 1, Centema subfusca (Moq.) Lopr., Northern Province, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • BAKER, J.G. & CLARKE, C.B. 1909. Amarantaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 6,1
  • COOKE, T. & WRIGHT, C.H. 1910. Amarantaceae. Flora capensis 5,1
  • HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Amarantaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
  • SCHINZ, H. 1893. Amarantaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,1a
  • SCHINZ, H. 1912. Beiträge zur Kenntnis der afrikanischen Flora XXV. Vierteljahrsschrift der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich 57
  • SCHINZ, H. 1934. Amaranthaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edn 2, 16c
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1988. Amaranthaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,1
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993. Amaranthaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin

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