Geraniaceae
Alternative names: Not Applicable
Description:
Herbs or small shrubs with petiolate stipulate leaves, the stipules often interpetiolar; hairs unbranched, with or without a glandular head.
Flowers arranged in cymose umbels, paired or solitary, with peduncles in a spiral sequence; regular or irregular, bisexual; sepals 5, imbricate, more or less mucronate, often slightly enlarged in fruit; petals 5, imbricate; stamens 10, arranged in 2 whorls, a varying number sometimes sterile; anthers with 2 parallel cells; ovary superior, 5-celled and clearly 5-lobed, surmounted by a stout 5-fid style; ovules hemi-anatropous, 2 in each cell.
Fruit a schizocarp, separating into 5 mericarps each containing a single seed and surmounted by an awn which separates from the central column of the style; seed without endosperm; radicle curved downwards (incumbent) over the cotyledons which are convolute around each other.
Distribution:
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About 750 species in 7 genera; cosmopolitan.
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Biology:
No text
Key to Genera:
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1. Fertile stamens 10; awn of the fruit glabrous inside |
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GERANIUM 2. |
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1. Some stamens sterile; awn of the fruit hairy inside |
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2. Sterile stamens 5, strictly alternating with fertile ones; pedicel without a spur |
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ERODIUM 1. |
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2. Sterile stamens varying in number and not strictly alternating with fertile ones; pedicel with a short or long spur adnate to it |
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PELARGONIUM 3. |
Author:
Prepared by R. C. Carolin
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