e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707919130973_9279789174780728" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Crossop<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707919130973_5929429029492239" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>teryx
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Rubiaceae - Cinchonoideae - Cinchoneae - Crossopteryx Fenzl

Description:

  • Small trees or shrubs
  • Leaves shortly petiolate, elliptic or ovate-elliptic; stipules ovate, acuminate
  • Flowers in dense, branched, terminal corymbose panicles
  • Calyx toothed; teeth erect, obtuse, deciduous; tube obovoid or globose
  • Corolla lobed, creamy white or pale yellow, somewhat fleshy, glabrous; lobes ovate, ciliate on inner face, contorted; tube long, funnel-shaped, gradually widening from base upwards
  • Stamens 4-6, arising deep in corolla throat, included; filaments linear, shorter than anthers; anthers linear, bluntly apiculate, shortly sagittate
  • Ovary 2-locular, with few ovules in each locule; placentas affixed peltately to septum; style terete, exserted; stigma 2-lobed, club-shaped
  • Fruit: capsules in dense heads, subsucculent; ellipsoid or globose, few-seeded
  • Seeds peltate, dorsally very compressed; testa membranous, expanded into a broad, lobulate and elegantly fimbriate wing
  • x = 11 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

  • Crossopteryx Fenzl
    • Fenzl: 45 (1839)
    • Hiern: 43 (1877)
    • Launert: 10 (1966)
    • Bridson & Verdcourt: 455 (1988)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 1: Crossopterix febrifuga (Afzel. ex G. Don) Benth., tropical Africa
  • Southern Africa: Namibia, Botswana and Northern Province

References:

  • BRIDSON, D.M. & VERDCOURT, B. 1988. Flora of tropical East Africa. Rubiaceae (part 2)
  • FENZL, E. 1839. In S.L. Endlicher & E. Fenzl, Novarum stirpium decades 6. Sollinger, Vienna
  • HIERN, W.P. 1877. Rubiaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 3
  • LAUNERT, E. 1966. Rubiaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 115