e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1709297062354_8203542406752551" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Eu<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1709297062354_7846181085779205" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>genia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Myrtaceae - Eugenia L.

Description:

  • Trees or shrubs, rarely undershrubs or dwarf perennials from a woody rootstock, sometimes dioecious
  • Leaves opposite, simple, entire, linear to elliptic, gland-dotted
  • Flowers in cymose racemes or flowers solitary, axillary or terminal; bracts and bracteoles often small, often caducous
  • Calyx 4(5)-lobed, sharply distinguished from pedicel; tube subglobose, united to ovary and seldom exceeding it
  • Petals 4(5)
  • Disc lining upper portion of calyx tube or flat
  • Stamens 4 times as many as petals or more numerous, longer than calyx lobes; anthers versatile
  • Ovary 2-locular, with 2-many ovules in each locule; stigma capitate
  • Fruit a berry, subglobose, crowned with persistent calyx; usually 1-locular by abortion
  • Seeds 1 or 2, large; testa often rough, glandular
  • x = 11 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Eugenia L.
    • Linnaeus: 470 (1753)
    • Sonder: 521 (1862)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 1 000, ± cosmopolitan in warm climates
  • Southern Africa: Species 14, Northern Province, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape

References:

  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • SONDER, O.W. 1862. Myrtaceae. Flora capensis 2