e-Key v3 - Ke<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699442662244_034488282689404404" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>y to Mimoso<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1699442662244_5100716631685864" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>ideae Genera
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.
Backtrack a
  • Plant armed with prickles or spines
b
  • Plant unarmed
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence bicoloured, the upper part bisexual, yellow, the lower neuter, mauve, pink or white
  • Short lateral branches terminating in spines, plants otherwise unarmed
b
  • Inflorescence concolorous
  • Plants armed with recurved prickles or stipular spines, very rarely short lateral branchlets terminating in spines
Backtrack a
  • Plant armed with spine-tipped lateral shoots, recurved prickles and stipular spines 0
  • Inflorescence globose
  • Stamen filaments united basally into a tube
b
  • Plant armed with recurved prickles or stipular spines, spine-tipped lateral branchlets 0
Backtrack a
  • Flowers in globose or subglobose heads, rarely the inflorescence reduced to only 2-4 flowers per 'head'
b
  • Flowers in spikes or spiciform racemes
Backtrack a
  • Stamens as many as or twice as many as the (3)4-5(6) corolla lobes
b
  • Stamens many (± 35-200)
Backtrack a
  • Small rigid much-branched shrub with pale green to olive, cano-puberulous, substriate branches
  • Stipules spinescent, recurved, up to 3.5 mm long
  • Leaves small, each with 1 pinna pair
  • Stamens 10, the 5 opposite the petals shorter than those alternating with the petals
  • Anthers with a minute deciduous apical gland
b
  • Annual or perennial herb or small shrub
  • Stems armed with scattered prickles and usually densely hispid or setulose
  • Stipules not spinescent, persistent
  • Leaves sensitive to touch, with (1)2-14 pinnate pairs
  • Stamens 4 or 8
  • Anthers eglandular apically
  • Flowers pink or mauve
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence reduced to 2-4 flowers
  • Flowers pink
  • Filaments shortly united into a tube, basally
b
  • Inflorescence not as above
  • Flowers mostly white, yellowish white, bright or deep yellow
  • Filaments free
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 10
b
  • Stamens many (± 35-200)
Backtrack a
  • Recurved prickles scattered along the stem
  • Pods compressed, slightly curved to falcate, at maturity the valves splitting transversely into 1-seeded segments
b
  • Straight stipular paired spines
  • Pods slightly curved or coiled, indehiscent, not segmented
Backtrack a
  • Petioles glandular
  • Stamen filaments free
  • Pods mostly dehiscent, various
b
  • Petioles eglandular
  • Stamen filaments shortly connate basally
  • Pods indehiscent, falcate or spirally coiled
Backtrack a
  • Inflorescence capitate, globose or subglobose
b
  • Inflorescence elongate, spicate or racemose
Backtrack a
  • Aquatic herb with creeping, usually floating and swollen stems
  • Flowers of two sorts, bisexual in upper part of head, neuter with elongate staminodes in lower part
b
  • Tree, shrub or suffrutex, rarely herbaceous and then not aquatic
Backtrack a
  • Leaves reduced to simple, entire phyllodes
b
  • Leaves bipinnate
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 10
b
  • Stamens many to numerous (± 19-200)
Backtrack a
  • Leaves with 1 pinna pair
  • Leaflets large, 20-60 mm wide
  • Large tree up to 15 m high
b
  • Leaves with (2)3-8 pinnae pairs
  • Leaflets small, less than 5 mm wide
  • Perennial herb, suffrutex, shrub or small tree
Backtrack a
  • Anthers with conspicuous scattered hairs
  • Flowers in heads up to 18 mm in diameter
  • Shrub or small tree with densely grey-puberulous branchlets
  • Leaflets 1.5-4.0 mm wide
b
  • Anthers glabrous
  • Flowers in heads up to 8 mm in diameter
  • Perennial herb or suffrutex with subglabrous to sparingly puberulous, ± angular stems
  • Leaflets 0.8-1.5 mm wide
Backtrack a
  • Stamen filaments free
  • Central flower of inflorescence not different from the rest
b
  • Stamen filaments united basally into a tube, tube included or exserted beyond the corolla
  • Central flower of inflorescence usually differing from and often larger than the rest
Backtrack a
  • Leaflets alternate to subopposite, 7-19 mm wide, with petiolules 1.5-3.0 mm long
b
  • Leaflets opposite, very rarely alternate but then sessile and less than 2 mm wide
Backtrack a
  • Stamens 10
b
  • Stamens many to numerous (± 19-200)
Backtrack a
  • Leaf rachis with a gland at the junction of each pair of pinnae or the upper pairs
  • Large tree
b
  • Leaf rachis eglandular
  • Liane, climber, shrub, suffrutex or small tree
Backtrack a
  • Liane, climber or erect suffrutex, the latter with leaflets 7-20 mm wide
b
  • Suffrutex, shrub or small tree
  • Leaflets less than 6.5 mm wide
Backtrack a
  • Stamen filaments free
b
  • Stamen filaments united basally into a tube, tube included or scarcely exserted beyond the corolla
  • Flowers uniform