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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Apocynaceae
Asclepias

Citation: E., Sp. Pl. 214 (1753).

Derivation: Greco-Latin name of a Mediterranean plant, now Cynanchum vincetoxicum (L.)Pers., or swallow-wort, a supposed antidote for poison, so called after Asklepios; in Latin, Aesculapius, the god of medicine.

Synonymy: Gomphocarpus R. Br., On Asclepiad. 26 (1810).

Common name: None

Description:
Erect shrubs; leaves opposite, decussate or in 3's, ovate-oblong, to linear-lanceolate.

Inflorescence of axillary and terminal umbels, erect in flower; corolla lobes deeply divided, reflexed in flower; corona lobes 5, from the lower point of the staminal column, fleshy, obliquely truncate at the summit, with or without a horn or tooth; anthers with terminal membranous appendages, appressed to the concave stigmatic head; pollen masses pendulous.

Fruit a follicle; seeds comose.

Distribution:  About 200 species in the Americas especially the U.S. and Africa. Cotton-bushes.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:
1. Leaves ovate; flowers purple; pedicel deflexed in fruit
A. rotundifolia 4.
1. Leaves linear-lanceolate
 
2. Flowers red; pedicels erect in fruit
A. curassavica 1.
2. Flowers white; pedicel defiexed in fruit
 
3. Corona-lobes compressed, the outer edge lower than the inner which terminates in 2 incurved teeth; follicle tapering into a narrow curved beak
A. fruticosa 2.
3. Teeth of the corona short and curved upwards; follicle obtuse at the summit, beak not curved
A. physocarpa 3.

Author: Not yet available


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