e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705321668387_8402466262926536" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Achyr<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1705321668387_6406479366124527" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>opsis
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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 - Achyropsis (Moq.) Hook.f.

Description:

  • Annual or perennial herbs or subshrubs, trichotomously branched
  • Leaves opposite or fascicled, entire, sessile or shortly petiolate
  • Inflorescences subcapitate to spicate, terminal on stem and branches, bracteate; bracts persistent, finally weakly deflexed or deflexed-ascending
  • Flowers bisexual, small, solitary in axils of bracts, modified sterile flowers 0; bracteoles 2, closely appressed to tepals; bracteoles and perianth falling together with fruit
  • Tepals 4 or 5, glabrous or pubescent, shiny, firm, deeply concave and often cucullate above, 1-3-nerved, with midrib not or scarcely excurrent in a minute mucro
  • Stamens 4 or 5; filaments delicate, shortly monadelphous at base, alternating with small simple or fringed pseudostaminodes; anthers 2-thecous
  • Ovary ovoid, glabrous; ovule solitary, suspended from a long, basal funicle; style cylindrical, very short to slender; stigma capitellate
  • Capsule thin-walled, indehiscent, enclosed in base of perianth
  • Seed ovoid or lenticular; perisperm/endosperm copious

Nomenclature:

  • Achyropsis (Moq.) Hook.f.
    • Hooker: 36 (1880)
    • Baker & Clarke: 66 (1909)
    • Cooke & Wright: 429 (1910)
    • Cavaco: 100 (1960)
    • Townsend: 430 (1979)
    • Townsend: 108 (1985)
    • Townsend: 110 (1988)
    • Townsend: 87 (1993)
  • Achyranthes L. sect. Achyropsis
    • Moq.: 310 (1849)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 6, tropical and southern Africa
  • Southern Africa: Species 2, Botswana, the northern provinces, Swaziland to KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape

References:

  • BAKER, J.G. & CLARKE, C.B. 1909. Amarantaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 6,1
  • CAVACO, A. 1960. Les Pandiaka et Achyropsis (Amaranthaceae) du continent Africain. Notulae Systematicae 16
  • COOKE, T. & WRIGHT, C.H. 1910. Amarantaceae. Flora capensis 5,1
  • HOOKER, J.D. 1880. Amarantaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3,1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
  • MOQUIN-TANDON, C.H.B.A. 1849. Amarantaceae. In A.P. de Candolle, Prodromus 13,2. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1979. Notes on Amaranthaceae 4. Achyranthes, Achyropsis, and Pandiaka. Kew Bulletin 34
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1985. Flora of tropical East Africa. Amaranthaceae
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1988. Amaranthaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,1
  • TOWNSEND, C.C. 1993. 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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