e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1703147069093_8601302916115798" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Lecythid<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1703147069094_5698722601099011" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>aceae
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

DICOTYLEDON - DILLENIIDAE - LECYTHIDALES - Lecythidaceae

Compiled by C.L. Bredenkamp

Description:

  • Trees (mangroves)
  • Leaves alternate, simple, bunched at ends of branches, sometimes with large glands on margin, glabrous; stipules small
  • Flowers bisexual, regular, ± showy, in racemes
  • Calyx 2-4-lobed, leathery; tube obconical, ± quadrangular; lobes valvate or slightly imbricate, unequal, elliptic
  • Petals 4, adnate to staminal tube, free
  • Stamens very many, in several series; filaments united at base; anthers 2-thecous, usually basifixed, opening by longitudinal slits
  • Ovary inferior or semi-inferior, 2-4-locular, with 2-many axile ovules in each locule; style simple, longer than stamens; stigma truncate
  • Fruit fleshy, becoming spongy, crowned with persistent calyx, 1-seeded
  • x = 13 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Lecythidaceae
    • Sonder: 523 (1862)
    • Sangai: 1 (1971)
    • Fernandes: 216 (1978)
    • Tsou: 1 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Genera 20, species 280, a pantropical family segregated into 4 or 5 subfamilies; Barringtonia is in subfamily Planchonioideae
  • Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 1

References:

  • FERNANDES, A. 1978. Barringtonia J.R. & G.Forst. Flora zambesiaca 4
  • SANGAI, G.R.W. 1971. Flora of tropical East Africa. Lecythidaceae
  • SONDER, O.W. 1862. Barringtonia (under Myrtaceae). Flora capensis 2
  • TSOU, CHIH-HUA 1994. The embryology, reproductive morphology, and systematics of Lecythidaceae. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden 71

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