Perennial herbs or shrublets 0.5-2(-5) m tall, with fibrous rootstock
Stems bifarious, hollow
Leaves paired (ternate in G. rivularis); colleters 0 (except in G. rivularis)
Inflorescence umbelliform (shortly cymose in G. rivularis)
Corolla white to pale greenish yellow
Corona lobes saccate; with or without appendages
Anthers 2-locular, with terminal, membranous, incumbent or erect appendage
Pollinia pendulous; caudicles shorter than pollinia
Follicles beaked, echinate and inflated; occasionally smooth and not inflated
Nomenclature:
Gomphocarpus R.Br.
Brown: 26 (1810)
Bullock: 405 (1952)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 25-32, Africa and Asia
Southern Africa: Species 10, widespread
References:
BROWN, R. 1810. On the Asclepiadeae, a natural order of plants separated from the Apocineae of Jussieu. Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society 1
BULLOCK, A.A. 1952. Notes on African Asclepiadaceae: I. Kew Bulletin 8
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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