e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699451206373_6448712242581547" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Nep<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699451206373_8179259859285339" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>tunia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Fabaceae - Mimosoideae - Mimoseae - Neptunia Lour.

Description:

  • Diffuse undershrubs, or perennial herbs, sometimes aquatic
  • Leaves bipinnate, frequently sensitive; leaflets small; stipules membranous, obliquely cordate, persistent or deciduous; petiolar glands rare
  • Flowers in globose heads on solitary, axillary peduncles, with some reduced to male and some neuter
  • Calyx campanulate, shortly 5-dentate
  • Petals 5, coherent to middle or free
  • Stamens (5)10, free; anthers crowned by a stipitate gland
  • Ovary stipitate; ovules many; style filiform with concave stigma
  • Pod oblong, deflexed, plano-compressed, 2-valved, subseptate between seeds within or rarely 1-seeded, dehiscent
  • Seeds transversely ovate, compressed, with filiform funicle
  • x = 14 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Neptunia Lour.
    • Loureiro: 653 (1790)
    • Brenan: 40 (1959)
    • Brenan & Brummitt: 45 (1970)
    • Ross: 121 (1975)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 11, fairly cosmopolitan in tropical regions
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: Neptunia oleracea Lour., tropical swamps of Namibia, the northern provinces and N KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • BRENAN, J.P.M. 1959. Flora of tropical East Africa. Leguminosae (part 1). Mimosoideae
  • BRENAN, J.P.M. & BRUMMITT, R.K. 1970. Leguminosae. Flora zambesiaca 3,1
  • LOUREIRO, J. DE 1790. Flora cochinchinensis. Academy, Lisbon
  • ROSS, J.H. 1975. Fabaceae. Mimosoideae. Flora of southern Africa 16,1

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