e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1702890972394_250414423163432" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Ster<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1702890972395_727697601365457" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>culia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Sterculiaceae - Sterculia L.

Description:

  • Trees, deciduous, monoecious or dioecious; bark smooth, often peeling in papery flakes
  • Leaves simple or digitately compound; stipules 0
  • Flowers, at least functionally, unisexual, in axillary or terminal clusters on abbreviated shoots, or in panicles, produced before or with leaves
  • Calyx 5(6)-lobed, petaloid
  • Petals 0
  • Stamens: staminal tube giving rise to many stamens from rim of terminal cupule; filaments short; anthers bilocular, with longitudinal, extrorse dehiscence
  • Ovary of 4 or 5 cohering carpels on a disc surrounded by stamens, rudimentary in male flowers; styles cohering; stigma peltate or 4- or 5-lobed
  • Fruit separating into 1-5 follicles
  • Seeds 4-16 per follicle
  • x = 10 (6, 8) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Sterculia L.
    • Linnaeus: 1007 (1753)
    • Harvey: 178 (1860)
    • Wild: 551 (1961)
    • Friedrich-Holzhammer, Merxmüller & Roessler: 26 (1969)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species ± 300, cosmopolitan in tropics
  • Southern Africa: Species 5, in Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and 1 extending into Eastern Cape near Uitenhage

References:

  • FRIEDRICH-HOLZHAMMER, M., MERXMÜLLER, H. & ROESSLER, H. 1969. Sterculiaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 84
  • HARVEY, W.H. 1860. Sterculiaceae, Vent. & Byttneriaceae, R.Br. Flora capensis 1
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • WILD, H. 1961. Sterculiaceae. Flora zambesiaca 1