e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707808041743_6048003122127539" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Ce<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707808041743_29306198701323516" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>riops
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Rhizophoraceae - Ceriops Arn.

Description:

  • Glabrous evergreen trees of small to medium size, mangroves with stilt-roots up to 1 m tall
  • Leaves decussate, clustered at ends of twigs, entire, leathery; stipules lanceolate
  • Flowers in (2-)4-many-flowered, condensed cymes; bracteoles 2 at base of flower, partly connate, cupular
  • Calyx deeply 5- or 6-lobed
  • Petals 5 or 6, white, arising at margin of disc, each enwrapping a pair of stamens, sometimes cohering at base by uncinate-hairy margins, fimbriate or with 2 or 3 clavate appendages
  • Disc cupular, shallowly lobed
  • Stamens twice as many as petals
  • Ovary half-inferior, 3-locular, with 2 ovules in each locule; style simple; stigma simple or somewhat 2- or 3-lobed
  • Fruit ovoid or elongate, mainly superior
  • Seeds 1 by abortion, germinating on plant and developing a ridged hypocotyl
  • x = 18

Nomenclature:

  • Ceriops Arn.
    • Arnott: 363 (1838)
    • Torre & Gonçalves: 85 (1978)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 2, tropical coastal mud banks from East Africa to East Indies and N Australia
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: Ceriops tagal (Perr.) C.B.Robinson, KwaZulu-Natal coast

References:

  • ARNOTT, G.A.W. 1838. Ceriops. Magazine of Natural History. London 1
  • TORRE, A.R. & GONÇALVES, A.E. 1978. Rhizophoraceae. Flora zambesiaca 4