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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Rutaceae
Microcybe

Citation: Turcz., Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 25:166 (1852).

Derivation: Greek mikros, small; kybê, head; referring to the small, terminal flowerheads.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Small shrubs; branchlets densely stellate-scaly, more or less glandular-warty; leaves alternate, exstipulate, simple, petiolate or sessile; lamina subterete due to the revolute margin or deltoid.

Inflorescences terminal, forming a compact head subtended by foliar bracts; flowers mostly bisexual, occasionally male only; sepals 5, free or united in the lower half; petals 5, pale-yellow to white, free, imbricate, glabrous or sparsely scaly; stamens 10, free, spreading, exceeding the petals; filaments slender, glabrous, stellate-scaly or pilose towards the base; anthers basifixed, with a small terminal gland, loculi dehiscing longitudinally on the lateral margin; disk absent; gynoecium 2-carpellate; ovary stellate-scaly; carpels free; ovules 2 per cell; style solitary, inserted just below the apex of the carpels, more or less twisted, lengthening during anthesis to become equal to the stamens in length, glabrous; stigma minutely 2-lobed.

Fruit of 2 basally connate cocci which dehisce explosively along the adaxial margin, undeveloped carpels if any persistent; exocarp coriaceous; endocarp cartilaginous and responsible for seed expulsion, ejected with the seed; seeds usually 1 (rarely 2) per coccus, generally reniform; outer testa thin, inner thick, crustaceous.

Distribution:  An Australian genus of 3 species extending from southern W.Aust. to western Vic.; in S.Aust. 2 species age represented.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:
1. Branchlets more or less glandular, brown-stellate to scaly; leaves sessile, not scabridulous
M. multiflora 1.
1. Branchlets smooth, silvery-stellate to scaly; leaves shortly petiolate, sparsely scabridulous from the persistent hair bases
M. pauciflora 2.

Author: Not yet available


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