e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1703067108498_39240292051048264" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Bux<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1703067108498_2715013704584279" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>aceae
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

DICOTYLEDON - BUXANAE - BUXALES - Buxaceae

Compiled by R.H. Archer

Description:

  • Trees or shrubs, evergreen, monoecious
  • Leaves opposite, shortly petiolate, simple, entire; stipules 0
  • Flowers regular, unisexual, small, sessile or shortly pedicelled in compact, axillary racemes or cymes, with terminal flowers usually female and remainder male, rarely a few bisexual
  • Perianth (calyx) usually of 2 sepaloid whorls
  • Male flowers: perianth segments 4, sometimes 6, usually in 2 series, imbricate; stamens 4-6, rarely more, when 4 then opposite perianth segments, when 6 then 2 pairs opposite inner segments; filaments free, exserted; anthers 2-thecous, dorsifixed near base, opening lengthwise, often large; pistil absent or rudimentary
  • Female flowers: perianth segments 4-6; lobes imbricate, outer smaller; ovary superior, 3-locular, with 2 pendulous, anatropous ovules from outer angles in each locule; styles 3, free, often diverging, thick, undivided
  • Fruit a somewhat woody loculicidal capsule with 3 horns (persistent styles)
  • Seeds somewhat 3-angled, black, shiny; testa crustaceous; embryo straight; endosperm firm
  • x = 14 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Buxaceae
    • Hutchinson: 105 (1967)
    • Glen: 37 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Genera 4, species 100, nearly cosmopolitan, but mainly northern hemisphere
  • Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 2

References:

  • GLEN, H.F. 1996. FSA contributions 5: Buxaceae. Bothalia 26
  • HUTCHINSON, J. 1967. The genera of flowering plants, Vol. 2. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Resources: