e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1701780616426_6101671685665948" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Silicu<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1701780616426_003986462053840789" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>laria
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Brassicaceae - Lunarieae - Silicularia Compton

Description:

  • Glabrous, slender, many-stemmed, virgate shrublets
  • Leaves linear or linear-oblanceolate, acute
  • Inflorescences terminal, many-flowered racemes
  • Sepals erect, weakly 3-nerved, inner 2 saccate
  • Petals obovate, rounded, cuneate
  • Stamens 6; filaments subulate, without appendages
  • Nectaries 2, horseshoe-shaped, 1 at base of each short filament
  • Ovary ± elliptic, sessile, compressed, imperfectly 2-locular; septum incomplete, 2-ovulate; style short or long
  • Fruit a subcircular to circular-elliptic or ovate-elliptic silicula, compressed, indehiscent, 1-seeded, 1-locular, but with marginal remains of septum, margin thickened; valves with indistinct midrib and radiating ridges; style persistent, short, stout
  • Seeds subcircular, compressed; cotyledons twice transversely folded

Nomenclature:

  • Silicularia Compton
    • Compton: 147 (1953)
    • Marais: 81 (1970)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa: Species 1: Silicularia polygaloides (Schltr.) Marais, endemic to Western Cape, known from mountains near Ceres

References:

  • COMPTON, R.H. 1953. Silicularia, a new genus of Cruciferae, with notes on related genera. Journal of South African Botany 19
  • MARAIS, W. 1970. Cruciferae. Flora of southern Africa 13