e-Key v3 - Apium
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Apiaceae - Apioideae - Apium L.

Description:

  • Annual, biennial, or weak perennial herbs
  • Leaves pinnate to ternately decompound, upper ones becoming sessile
  • Flowers in compound umbels, usually opposite leaves, sessile or shortly pedunculate; involucral bracts 0 or many and foliaceous
  • Calyx teeth obsolete
  • Petals ovate, concave, entire or slightly emarginate, inflexed at apex
  • Styles short, divergent; bases depressed, with entire margins
  • Fruit ovate, laterally flattened, glabrous; mericarps each with 5 longitudinal ribs; oil ducts 4 in furrows and 2 on face
  • x = 11 (7, 8) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Apium L.
    • Linnaeus: 264 (1753)
    • Wollf: 26 (1927)
    • Tutin: 351 (1968)
    • Cannon: 582 (1978)
    • Burtt: 182 (1991)
    • Pimenov & Leonov: 22 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 25, cosmopolitan
  • Southern Africa: Species 4, widespread
    • 1 indigenous: Apium prostratum Vent (Sea Celery), along the coast, from the Cape Peninsula (Western Cape) to the Eastern Cape
    • The naturalised species include *A. graveolens L., Celery

References:

  • BURTT, B.L. 1991. Umbelliferae of southern Africa: an introduction and annotated checklist. Edinburgh Journal of Botany 48
  • CANNON, J.F.M. 1978. Umbelliferae. Flora zambesiaca 4
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • PIMENOV, M.G. & LEONOV, M.V. 1993. The genera of the Umbelliferae. A nomenclator. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
  • TUTIN, T.G. 1968. Apium. Flora europaea 2
  • WOLFF, H. 1927. Umbelliferae. Das Pflanzenreich IV. 228 (Heft 90)

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