e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705324353214_6033955066617787" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705324353215_8665297483059751" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>Aerva
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Amaranthaceae - Amaranthoideae - Amarantheae - Aervinae - Aerva Forssk.

Description:

  • Perennial herbs (sometimes flowering in first year), prostrate to erect or scandent
  • Leaves opposite or alternate, entire, flat
  • Inflorescences axillary and terminal, sessile or pedunculate, woolly spikes, or spikes arranged in a loose panicle, bracteate
  • Flowers unisexual or bisexual, plants probably sometimes polygamous, solitary in axils of bracts; bracteoles 2; bracteoles and perianth falling together with fruit but bracts and bracteoles persistent
  • Tepals 5, free, oval, or lanceolate-oblong, sometimes unequal, some or all softly woolly, with membranous margin and a thin to wider green centre
  • Stamens (and subulate staminodes of female flowers) 5; filaments connate at base into a basin or cup, alternating with subulate to oblong pseudostaminodes; anthers 2-thecous
  • Ovary small; ovule solitary, suspended from an elongated basal funicle; style shorter or longer than ovary; stigmas 2 or capitellate
  • Capsule thin-wall, delicate, bursting irregularly, membranous, enclosed in perianth
  • Seed compressed-reniform, firm, black
  • x = 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Aerva Forssk.
    • Forsskål: 170 (1775) name conserved
    • Schinz: 108 (1893)
    • Baker & Clarke: 37 (1909)
    • Cooke & Wright: 425 (1910)
    • Schinz: 52 (1934)
    • Cavaco: 103 (1962)
    • Townsend: 461 (1974)
    • Townsend: 83 (1985)
    • Townsend: 93 (1988)
    • Townsend: 161 (1993a)
    • Townsend: 85 (1993b)
  • Ouret
    • Adans.: 268, 586 (1763).

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species ± 10, warmer parts of Africa and Asia
  • Southern Africa: Species 3, widespread, but absent from KwaZulu-Natal and southern Cape region

References:

  • ADANSON, M. 1763. Famille les Amarantes, Amaranthi. Familles des plantes 2. Vincent, Paris
  • BAKER, J.G. & CLARKE, C.B. 1909. Amarantaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 6,1
  • CAVACO, A. 1962. Les Amaranthaceae de l'Afrique au sud du Tropique du Cancer et de Madagascar. Mémoires du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, Série B, Botanique 13
  • COOKE, T. & WRIGHT, C.H. 1910. Amarantaceae. Flora capensis 5,1
  • FORSSKÅL, P. 1775. Flora aegyptiaco-arabica. Möller, Copenhagen
  • SCHINZ, H. 1893. Amarantaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien III,1a
  • SCHINZ, H. 1934. Amaranthaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, edn 2, 16c
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1974. Notes on Amaranthaceae 2. Kew Bulletin 29
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1985. Flora of tropical East Africa. Amaranthaceae
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1988. Amaranthaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,1
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993a. Amaranthaceae. Flora of Somalia 1
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993b. Amaranthaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin

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