e-Key v3 - Ke<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1706514782947_34669618951594283" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>y to Chenopodi<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1706514782947_19844931650864273" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>aceae Genera
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.
Backtrack a
  • Plants with well developed, ± flat leaves
  • Branches not articulate
  • Plants mostly hairy, mealy or glandular, sometimes glabrous
b
  • Plants apparently leafless or leaves narrow, usually subterete, or scale-like and imbricate
Backtrack a
  • Plants glabrous
  • Fruiting perianth hard, united in clusters
  • Ovary semi-inferior
b
  • Plants glabrous, mealy, pilose, or glandular
  • Fruiting perianth membranous or fleshy
  • Ovary superior
Backtrack a
  • Plants mealy when young
  • Flowers unisexualMale flowers with 5-lobed perianth and 5 stamens
  • Female flowers without perianth but surrounded by a pair of bracteoles that may be free or fused
b
  • Plants variously hairy to glabrous
  • Flowers bisexual or female, all with perianth, not surrounded by bracteoles
Backtrack a
  • Bracts connate into a somewhat inflated, spongy, winged casing, with a small, apical opening
b
  • Bracts not connate, becoming subsucculent
Backtrack a
  • Flowers in axillary clusters, bisexual and male together
b
  • Flowers in naked, terminal inflorescences
Backtrack a
  • Fruit with a succulent pericarp, not enveloped by the perianth
b
  • Fruit with a membranous pericarp, enveloped by the perianth
Backtrack a
  • Leaves distinct, though sometimes scale-like
  • Stems entire, not jointed at nodes or not made up of apparently leafless succulent internodes (articles)
  • Leaves usually alternate
  • Plants glabrous or hairy
b
  • Leaves apparently absent (much reduced or obsolete)
  • Stems jointed at nodes, apparently made up of leafless succulent internodes (articles)
  • Plants glabrous
Backtrack a
  • Fruiting perianth without obvious appendages
b
  • Fruiting perianth with 1 or more wings, spines, or tubercles
Backtrack a
  • Leaves reduced to small succulent scales, shorter than 2 mm, amplexicaul
  • Flowers immersed in upper parts of stem, without bracts or bracteoles, forming cylindrical, lateral and terminal, spike-like inflorescences
b
  • Leaves distinct, terete or flat, sometimes succulent, usually longer than 3 mm, not amplexicaul
  • Flowers in axils of leaf-like bracts, subtended by 2 or 3 minute, scarious bracteoles, forming glomerules in leaf axils or at leaf base, some distance from axil
Backtrack a
  • Annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs
  • Flowers usually 1-3, in axils of the bracts, bibracteolate
  • Perianth horizontally winged at or above the middle
b
  • Annual herbs
  • Flowers in axillary clustersfruiting perianth accrescent with spine-like or tubercle-like appendages, or membranous scarious wings at the back, bracts 0
  • Bracteoles 0
Backtrack a
  • Fruiting perianth segments with spines or spine-like tubercles
b
  • Fruiting perianth segments with membranous scarious wings
Backtrack a
  • Annual herbs
  • Adventitious roots not formed
  • Flowers exposed or not, with or without a truncate lateral shield
  • Seeds with a soft or hard testa
b
  • Perennial herbs or subshrubs
  • Adventitious roots formed
  • Flowers always exposed, each with a truncate lateral shield
  • Seeds with a thin membranous testa, minutely hairy
Backtrack a
  • Fruiting spikes disarticulating into separate ring-like segments, cylindrical, corky
  • Flowers concealed in spike
  • Seed with hard crustaceous testa
b
  • Fruiting spikes persistent, or breaking up irregularly
  • Flowers exposed
  • Seed with soft membranous testa