e-Key v<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1701696378427_31847667702977" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>3 - *Al<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1701696378427_1337207810212242" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>yssum
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Brassicaceae - Hesperideae - *Alyssum L.

Description:

  • Annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs; vegetative parts generally densely stellately hairy
  • Leaves simple, entire or dentate
  • Inflorescence dense, racemose or paniculate
  • Sepals erect-spreading, not saccate
  • Petals entire or emarginate, clawed, yellow
  • Stamens 6; all or only some filaments with appendages
  • Nectaries 4, on either side of each short filament, triangular or filiform
  • Fruit a circular, ovate or obovate silicula; valves flat or eventually inflated, faintly net-veined, glabrous or hairy
  • Seeds 2-16, flattened, mostly narrowly winged; cotyledons accumbent
  • x = 8 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • *Alyssum L.
    • Linnaeus: 650 (1753)
    • Linnaeus: 293 (1754)
    • Sonder: 23 (1860)
    • Schulz: 490 (1936)
    • Phillips: 352 (1951)
    • Ball: 297 (1964)
    • Marais: 99 (1970)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species ± 168, mostly Mediterranean, some in central Europe and Asia
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: *Alyssum minutum Schltdl. ex DC., naturalised in Namaqualand and the Western Cape

References:

  • BALL, P.W. 1964. Cruciferae. Alyssum [and other genera]. Flora europaea 1
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum, edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • MARAIS, W. 1970. Cruciferae. Flora of southern Africa 13
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants, edn 2. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • SCHULZ, O.E. 1936. Cruciferae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien II,17b
  • SONDER, O.W. 1860. Crucifereae. Flora capensis 1

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