Goodeniaceae
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: None
Description:
Herbs, undershrubs and shrubs, glabrous or with glandular and/or non-glandular hairs; leaves alternate, simple, lacking stipules.
Inflorescence cymose or racemose, rarely a capitulum, or the flowers solitary; flowers sessile or pedicellate, zygomorphic, bisexual, epigynous, perigynous or hypogynous, with a hypanthium surrounding the ovary; calyx herbaceous, with 5 more or less free valvate lobes; corolla sympetalous, often 2-lipped or 1-sided; lobes 5, valvate, often with undulate induplicate wings and small lateral lobes (auricles); stamens 5, inserted at the base of the corolla tube or free, alternating with the lobes; anthers basifixed, 2-celled, introrse, included, often cohering around the style to form a cylinder which is filled with pollen when the flower opens; style usually simple, growing up through the anther cylinder and terminated by a cup-shaped or 2-lipped ciliate-margined indusium which collects and exposes the pollen; stigma small, usually 2-lobed, inside the indusium; ovary superior to inferior, 1- or 2-celled with a septum (dissepiment); ovules 1-several per cell, anatropous, usually erect or ascending on axile or subbasal placentas.
Fruit a capsule, drupe or nut; seeds usually endospermic, often flattened and winged; embryo straight.
Distribution:
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17 genera with about 410 species in the Southern Hemisphere, of which 16 genera and 380 species are Australian.
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Biology:
Catospermum goodeniaceum (F. Muell.)Krause was included by J. Black in Fl. S. Aust. 562 (1929); however, there is no evidence that this species has ever occurred within S.Aust.
Key to Species:
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1. Inflorescence a solitary capitulum on a naked scape; corolla almost actinomorphic |
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BRUNONIA 1. |
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1. Inflorescence not capitular, if scapose then loose with prominent bracteoles; corolla strongly zygomorphic |
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2. Ovary containing 1 or 2 ovules; fruit an indehiscent nut or drupe |
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3. Corolla 2-lipped, the posterior lobes with auricles; anthers cohering in a tube |
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DAMPIERA 3. |
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3. Corolla 1-sided with lobes spreading like a fan, without auricles; anthers free |
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SCAEVOLA 6. |
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2. Ovary containing 4-many ovules; fruit a capsule |
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4. Ovary superior (free from the calyx) |
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VELLEIA 8. |
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4. Ovary inferior (more or less enclosed by the hypanthium) |
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5. Divaricate shrubs with linear terete leaves or minute scale leaves |
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LECHENAULTIA 5. |
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5. Herbs, or shrubs with broad flat prominent leaves |
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6. Plant succulent; corolla l-sided with lobes spreading like a fan, lacking membranous wings |
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SELLIERA 7. |
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6. Plant never succulent; corolla more or less 2-lipped, with membranous-winged lobes |
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7. Seeds wingless, hardly compressed, carunculate |
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COOPERNOOKIA 2. |
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7. Seeds flattened, winged, without a caruncle |
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GOODENIA 4. |
Author:
Prepared by D. A. Cooke except where indicated
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