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Electronic Flora of South Australia family Fact Sheet

Aizoaceae

Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Herbs or shrubs; leaves alternate or opposite, entire, sometimes fleshy; stipules present or 0.

Flowers cymose, terminal, axillary or leaf-opposed, with a herbaceous or scarious 4- or 5-lobed or 4- or 5-partite perianth, bisexual, regular; petals strictly 0 but petal-like staminodes sometimes present; stamens 4 or 5 to numerous, the outer sometimes forming petaloid staminodes; ovary superior or inferior, with 2-5 or more cells, rarely reduced to a single carpel; ovules anatropous or campylotropous, 1 or more in each cell; placentas usually axile; styles as many as cells and usually stigmatic on the inner side from the base upwards.

Fruit a capsule, sometimes circumsciss, rarely fleshy; seed usually compressed and crustaceous, with the embryo curved round the endosperm.

Distribution:  About 130 genera and 1,200 species or more; nearly 20 genera in Australia, including several naturalised genera which were introduced as garden plants, such as Lampranthus and Mesembryanthemum spp. (A. Prescott & J. Venning (1984) Fl. Aust. 4:19-62).

Biology: No text

Key to Genera:
1. Leaves trigonous; fruits fleshy and indehiscent
 
2. Styles 6-11; fruit 6-1 l-celled
CARPOBROTUS 2.
2. Styles 4 or 5; fruit 4- or 5-celled
SARCOZONA 14.
1. Leaves flat to terete, if trigonous then fruits dry and dehiscent
 
3. Petaloid staminodes present
 
4. Leaves strongly flattened and petiolate, if subterete then petaloid staminodes white and placentas axile
 
5. Papillae absent; woody perennial
PSILOCAULON 12.
5. Papillae numerous on young parts; herbaceous or fleshy and usually annual or biennial
 
6. Petaloid staminodes white; uppermost leaves usually alternate
MESEMBRYANTHEMUM 9.
6. Petaloid staminodes yellow or purple; leaves all opposite
 
7. Flowers axillary
APTENIA 1.
7. Flowers terminal
MICROPTERUM 10.
4. Leaves terete or trigonous; flowers almost always distinctly pedunculate; placentas parietal
 
8. Flowers in branched inflorescences
RUSCHIA 13.
8. Flowers solitary
 
9. Petaloid staminodes pink; plants prostrate
 
10. Perianth lobes c. 3 mm long
DROSANTHEMUM 4.
10. Perianth lobes 12-20 mm long
DISPHYMA 3.
9. Petaloid staminodes yellow-orange; plants erect shrubs
LAMPRANTHUS 8.
3. Petaloid staminodes 0
 
11. Fruit a capsule dehiscing by valves which open when wet
GUNNIOPSIS 7.
11. Fruit dry or succulent, indehiscent or dehiscent by longitudinal slits or circumsciss
 
12. Leaves opposite
 
13. Perianth c. 2 mm long; styles and ovary cells 2
ZALEYA 17.
13. Perianth c. 4-7 mm long; styles and ovary cells 1
TRIANTHEMA 16.
12. Leaves basal, alternate, fascicled or whorled
 
14. Fruit indehiscent; ovary half-inferior
TETRAGONIA 15.
14. Fruit dehiscent; ovary superior
 
15. Ovules and seeds 1 per cell; leaf apices usually recurved
GALENIA 5.
15. Ovules and seeds several per cell; leaf apices not recurved
 
16. Leaves linear; flowers on capillary peduncles
MOLLUGO 11.
16. Leaves oblong or oblanceolate to orbicular; flowers shortly pedunculate
GLINUS 6.

Author: Prepared by J. P. Jessop


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