Annual herbs with regular candelabriform branching, glabrous or sparingly hairy
Leaves alternate, simple, dentate
Flowers solitary, large, white, pinkish or yellow, erect or cernuous
Calyx long, tubular, 5-fid or spathaceous, base often persistent
Corolla funnel-shaped; lobes 5-10, short, broad, often acuminate; limb plicate
Stamens 5, arising near base of corolla tube, included; anthers linear, dehiscing longitudinally, sometimes cohering into a tube
Ovary 2-locular or ± spuriously 4-celled; style filiform, dilated and 2-lamellate at apex
Fruit a spiny capsule, dehiscing by 4 valves or irregularly, subtended by reflexed enlarged base of calyx
x = 6 (aneuploids, high polyploidy, B-chromosomes - 1 report)
Nomenclature:
*Datura L.
Linnaeus: 179 (1753)
Henderson & Anderson: 264 (1966)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 8, New Worldl; some cultivated
Southern Africa: Species 3, naturalised and widespread
References:
HENDERSON, M. & ANDERSON, J.G. 1966. Common weeds in South Africa. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 37
LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum, edn 1. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
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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.
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