Chamarea esterhuyseniae

PLANTAE / PHANEROGAMAE / ANTHOPHYTA / APIALES / APIACEAE / APIOIDEAE / ANNESORHIZEAE / CHAMAREA / ESTERHUYSENIAE

Chamarea esterhuyseniae B.L.Burtt

LC Indigenous Endemic

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Morphological description

Herb, glabrous, leafless at flowering; roots not known. Leaves all radical, ternate, the segments bipinnate, the ultimate pinnae of earliest leaves more or less trilobed each lobe with 3-5 coarse sharp teeth, the later leaves with the ultimate pinnae more finely cut. Flowering stem up to 50 cm high, simple below, branched in upper part the branches usually bearing a single terminal compound umbel, rarely a single simple umbel; branches subtended by lanceolate leaf-sheaths 45 mm long, the lower part of the stem with 3-4 sterile sheaths; main stem ending in a compound umbel. Umbel with involucre of 5-6 lanceolate acuminate bracts, 5-6 rayed; rays unequal, 1.5-6 cm long; primary umbel with a few scattered male flowers, secondary lateral umbels often only 3-rayed and wholly male. Pedicels 2 mm. Sepals 0.5 mm long, acute. Petals 1.5 mm long (excluding the inflexed finely acuminate tip) x 0.75 mm. Filaments 2 mm long, attenuate to fine point. Anthers 0.75 x 0.5 mm. Stylopodia broadly conical (shallowly domed in male flowers), passing into divergent styles 0.75 mm long (styles absent in male flower). Fruit 3.75^4 mm long, excluding stylopodium; mericarps slightly heteromorphic; one equally 5-ribbed, the two dorso-lateral ribs sepaline, the other with the lateral and dorsal ribs sepaline and slightly more strongly developed; commissure bivittate, valleculae univittate; seed not protruding into stylopodial dome. From: Burtt, BL. 1991. Umbelliferae of southern Africa: An introduction and annotated checklist. Edinburgh J. Bot. 48(2): 133-282. [All rights reserved]

Like C. capensis but the first-formed leaves less finely dissected than the later ones and the fruit larger, 4 mm long, elliptic, mericarps slightly heteromorphic. From: Magee, AR; Manning, JC; Van Wyk, B-E; Tilney, PM. 2012. Apiaceae: Chamarea Eckl. & Zeyh. In: J Manning & P Goldblatt (eds), Plants of the Greater Cape Floristic Region 1: The Core Cape flora. Strelitzia 29: 325-325. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. [CC BY]

Diagnostic description

It has not been easy to decide whether this plant should be placed in Chamarea or Annesorhiza, genera whose wide separation in the systems adopted by Sonder (1862) and Drude (1898) is surely quite unnatural. The species of Annesorhiza are often much larger plants, with coarser leaves, than those of Chamarea. Where this is not so, for example in the Transvaal Annesorhiza wilmsii, then the fruit size and shape conforms with that found in other species of the genus; that is, fruits more than 5 mm long, more than twice as long as wide, and scarcely narrowed at the top. In Chamarea (including C. esterhuyseniae which has the largest fruits) they are at most barely 4 mm long, and barely twice as long as broad, and distinctly narrowed at the top (ellipsoid or ampulliform, not oblong as in Annesorhiza: I am speaking here of the body of the fruit; the wings in a species like A. macrocarpa disguise the true shape). From: Burtt, BL. 1991. Umbelliferae of southern Africa: An introduction and annotated checklist. Edinburgh J. Bot. 48(2): 133-282. [All rights reserved]

Habitat

5000 ft, step ledges and rocky slopes above stream, E aspect, often in Restio clumps. From: Burtt, BL. 1991. Umbelliferae of southern Africa: An introduction and annotated checklist. Edinburgh J. Bot. 48(2): 133-282. [All rights reserved]

Ledges and rocky slopes at high alt. From: Magee, AR; Manning, JC; Van Wyk, B-E; Tilney, PM. 2012. Apiaceae: Chamarea Eckl. & Zeyh. In: J Manning & P Goldblatt (eds), Plants of the Greater Cape Floristic Region 1: The Core Cape flora. Strelitzia 29: 325-325. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. [CC BY]

Distribution

Worcester: Waaihoek Peak. From: Magee, AR; Manning, JC; Van Wyk, B-E; Tilney, PM. 2012. Apiaceae: Chamarea Eckl. & Zeyh. In: J Manning & P Goldblatt (eds), Plants of the Greater Cape Floristic Region 1: The Core Cape flora. Strelitzia 29: 325-325. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. [CC BY]

Flowering time

February

Altitude

0 to 1800 m

Occurrence records map

This map contains point-based occurrences at different locations

iNaturalist: BODATSA: Data partners records:

Residence status

Occurrence in the Flora of Southern Africa (FSA) countries and South African provinces. Residence status indicates if a taxon is indigenous, endemic, naturalised or invasive in a specific region. This data is based on specimen records and literature

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BOT

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ESW

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