e-Key v3 - Ke<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1706179180210_283394277324011" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>y to Api<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1706179180210_653754919902892" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>aceae Genera
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.
Backtrack a
  • Leaves simple or palmately lobed or palmately compound
b
  • Leaves pinnate, pinnately lobed or decompound, or basal leaves simple and cauline leaves pinnately dissected
Backtrack a
  • Plants woody, not dying down to ground level after flowering
b
  • Plants herbaceous (i.e. stems dying down to ground level after flowering, occasionally radical leaves persistent, or stems creeping and only the inflorescences dying)
Backtrack a
  • Fruit hairy
b
  • Fruit glabrous
Backtrack a
  • Mericarps heteromorphic, winged
b
  • Mericarps homomorphic, not winged
Backtrack a
  • Margins of leaflets toothed
  • Seed loose within endocarp
b
  • Margins of leaf or leaflets entire
  • Seed adherent to endocarp
Backtrack a
  • Leaves flat, palmately lobed, with distinct intramarginal nerve
b
  • Leaves ± terete
Backtrack a
  • Leaves palmately compound
b
  • Leaves simple or palmately lobed to partite (Sanicula)
Backtrack a
  • ruit dorsally flattened
b
  • Fruit not flattened
Backtrack a
  • Leaf blade many times longer than broad
b
  • Leaf blade not more than 3 times as long as broad
Backtrack a
  • Umbels (heads) simple with conspicuous involucre of bracts united at base, pale green, greenish yellow or silvery white, sometimes becoming pinkish inside
b
  • Umbels compound
  • Involucral bracts free
Backtrack a
  • Leaves grass-like, tapered to an acute tip
  • Flowers yellow
b
  • Leaves linear or spathulate, blunt
  • Flowers white
Backtrack a
  • Plants acaulescent
  • Leaves prickly, in dense rosette
  • Flowers unisexual
  • Fruit 1-seeded
b
  • Plants caulescent
  • Leaves not prickly (at most with strong marginal cilia)
  • Flowers bisexual or andromonoecious
  • Fruit 2-seeded
Backtrack a
  • Umbels simple, or seemingly so by forming compact heads
b
  • Umbels manifestly compound, umbellules with conspicuous peduncles
Backtrack a
  • Leaves palmately lobed or divided
b
  • Leaves entire or toothed
Backtrack a
  • Involucral bracts united
  • Fruit glabrous except for some blunt scales at the top
b
  • Involucral bracts free
  • Fruit with hooked bristles
Backtrack a
  • Leaves tomentose below
  • Involucral bracts free
b
  • Leaves never tomentose below
  • Involucral bracts united
Backtrack a
  • Leaves palmately lobed, cordate or peltate
  • Fruit with vittae in the furrows
b
  • Leaves palmately trifid
  • Fruit with vittae below veins in the ribs
Backtrack a
  • Plants woody, not dying to ground level after fruiting
b
  • Plants herbaceous, either dying down to ground level after fruiting or low creeping herbs
Backtrack a
  • Fruit (and ovaries) hairy or bristly
b
  • Fruit (and ovaries) glabrous
Backtrack a
  • Leaves thick, fleshy
b
  • Leaves not fleshy
Backtrack a
  • Plant leafless at flowering
  • Leaves, if present, with linear segments
b
  • Plant with well developed leaves at flowering
  • Leaf segments broadly elliptic
Backtrack a
  • Mericarps unequal, ribs winged
b
  • Mericarps equal, ribs not winged or with wing-like ridges only
Backtrack a
  • Fruit not flattened, or slightly compressed laterally
b
  • Fruit strongly flattened dorsoventrally
Backtrack a
  • Fruit ribs without wing-like extensions
  • Surface between the ribs tuberculate or wrinkled
b
  • Fruit ribs without wing-like extensions
  • Surface smooth between the ribs
Backtrack a
  • Lower leaves with broad segments, upper ones with linear segments
  • Sparsely hairy at least along lower midrib
  • Stem not conspicuously ribbed
b
  • Lower and upper leaf segments linear to subterete segments
  • Glabrous
  • Stems ribbed
Backtrack a
  • Shrub or small tree
  • Leaves deciduous, simply pinnate with fine-tipped teeth
  • Vittae inconspicuous or absent in ripe fruit
b
  • Subshrub
  • Leaves evergreen, pinnatisect
  • Vittae conspicous, one in each furrow between the ribs and 2 on the commissure
Backtrack a
  • Foliage leaves all radical, those on the stem reduced to a sheath with or without a vestigial lamina
b
  • Foliage leaves both radical and cauline
Backtrack a
  • Fruit with vittae below the veins in the ribs
b
  • Fruit with vittae in the furrows between ribs
Backtrack a
  • Fruit strongly dorsoventrally flattened
  • Basal leaves sometimes present at flowering
b
  • Fruit not flattened
  • Leaves usually withered or not yet produced at flowering
Backtrack a
  • Mericarps heteromorphic
b
  • Mericarps homomorphic
Backtrack a
  • Fruit oblong with strong, yellow, almost contiguous ridges, 5 mm or longer
b
  • Fruit ovoid or flask-shaped with ribs well spaced, shorter than 4 mm
Backtrack a
  • Fruit hairy or bristly
b
  • Fruit glabrous
Backtrack a
  • Perennials or biennials
b
  • Annuals or biennials
Backtrack a
  • Involucre absent
b
  • Involucre present
Backtrack a
  • Involucral bracts pinnatisect
b
  • Involucral bracts entire
Backtrack a
  • Low spreading herb
  • Umbels simple or apparently so because of very short rays
b
  • Erect herbs
  • Umbels obviously compound
Backtrack a
  • Leaves pinnate with broad leaflets
b
  • Leaves usually absent at flowering, if present segments linear
Backtrack a
  • Fruit processes large, multicellular, cells multiseriate, sometimes flattened at the base and usually with recurved barbs (glochids) at the apex
b
  • Fruit processes unicellular, or at least of uniseriate cells, neither flattened nor barbed
Backtrack a
  • Processes arranged on ribs (especially the secondary ribs) of the fruit, the larger much flattened at base
  • Involucral bracts pinnate
b
  • Processes spread over surface of fruit, scarcely flattened at base
  • Involucral bracts entire
Backtrack a
  • Fruit oblong
b
  • Fruit ± as broad as long
Backtrack a
  • Fruit much flattened, discoid, margins thickened, mericarps not separating
b
  • Fruit not flattened, mericarps separating when ripe
Backtrack a
  • Erect
  • Basal leaves usually cordate, upper dissected
  • Involucre absent
b
  • Dwarf, branched from base
  • All leaves dissected
  • Involucre present
Backtrack a
  • Fruit ovoid
  • Lateral ribs marginal
b
  • Fruit distinctly didymous
  • Lateral ribs not marginal
Backtrack a
  • Perennials or biennials
b
  • Annuals or biennials
Backtrack a
  • Fruit dorsoventrally flattened
b
  • Fruit ± round in cross section
Backtrack a
  • Fruit at least twice as long as broad
b
  • Fruit distinctly less than twice as long as broad
Backtrack a
  • Leaf segments filiform
  • Plant strongly aromatic
  • Flowers yellow
b
  • Leaf segments flat
  • Plant weakly aromatic
  • Flowers white
Backtrack a
  • Involucre absent
b
  • Involucre present
Backtrack a
  • At least some of the umbels shortly pedunculate, apparently leaf-opposed
b
  • All umbels on well developed peduncles
Backtrack a
  • Leaves once-pinnate
b
  • Leaves decompound
Backtrack a
  • Teeth on leaflet margin spreading
b
  • Teeth on leaflet margin incurved and often slightly overlapping
Backtrack a
  • Low growing, somewhat fleshy maritime herb
  • Fruit with rather thick but narrow wings
  • Vittae persistent
  • Endosperm not sulcate
b
  • Erect biennial, 0.5-3.0 m high
  • Leaves not fleshy
  • Fruit only ridged
  • Vittae not usually visible in mature fruit
  • Endosperm sulcate
Backtrack a
  • Involucral bracts pinnatisect
b
  • Involucral bracts undivided or absent
Backtrack a
  • Fruit strongly flattened dorsoventrally
b
  • Fruit not strongly flattened dorsoventrally, sometimes laterally compressed
Backtrack a
  • Involucre absent
b
  • Involucre present
Backtrack a
  • Outer flowers with outer petals enlarged
b
  • Outer flowers with all petals equal
Backtrack a
  • Calyx teeth obsolete
b
  • Calyx teeth distinct
Backtrack a
  • Biennial
  • Umbels strongly pedunculate
b
  • Annual
  • Umbels sessile or subsessile
Backtrack a
  • Vallecular vittae 2 or more
  • Stem erect, not branched in lower part
  • Basal leaves often simply cordate
b
  • Vallecular vittae solitary
  • Stem branched in lower part
  • Basal leaves pinnatisect
Backtrack a
  • Surface of fruit covered with close-set clavate vesicles
b
  • Surface of fruit without vesicles
Backtrack a
  • Endosperm sulcate on commissural face
  • Erect biennial branched only in upper part
  • Radical leaves usually ± 300 mm long
b
  • Endosperm not sulcate
  • L low-growing plants
  • Radical leaves usually only 150 mm long
Backtrack a
  • Leaves fleshy
  • Fruit with narrow but thickish wings
b
  • Leaves not fleshy
  • Fruit with slender ribs