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Aristea africana (L.) Hoffmanns. Search in The Plant ListSearch in IPNISearch in Australian Plant Name IndexSearch in NYBG Virtual HerbariumSearch in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelleSearch in Type Specimen Register of the U.S. National HerbariumSearch in Virtual Herbaria AustriaSearch in JSTOR Plant ScienceSearch in SEINetSearch in African Plants Database at Geneva Botanical GardenAfrican Plants, Senckenberg Photo GallerySearch in Flora do Brasil 2020Search in Reflora - Virtual HerbariumSearch in Living Collections Decrease font Increase font Restore font
 

Published In: Verzeichniss der Pflanzenkulturen 40. (Verz. Pfl.-Kult.) Name publication detail
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 6/6/2016)
Acceptance : Accepted
Taxon Profile     (Last Modified On 6/10/2016)
Description: Plants mostly 100–150 mm high. Stem compressed, several-branched, sometimes ± dichotomously, sometimes simple. Leaves linear, 1.5–4.0 mm wide, relatively soft-textured, upper leaves with margins fringed near base. Flower clusters few in lax arrangement, each 3–6-flowered; spathes and bracts 8–12 mm long, green to brown in centre with wide silvery-translucent margins closely and deeply fringed, sometimes rusty near tips. Flowers blue, tepals ± obovate, mostly 8–12 mm long. Filaments ± 4 mm long; anthers ± 2 mm long. Style 5–6 mm long, stigmatic lobes broad. Capsules deeply 3-winged, ± 8 mm long. Seeds lamellate, kidney shaped, with foveate sculpturing, 2 per locule, margins shortly papillate. Flowering time: mainly September to December.
Country: South Africa
South African Province: Western Cape
Distribution and ecology: widespread in Western Cape, extending from the Gifberg to Bredasdorp and Riversdale; often on sandstone substrates but also on granitic or clay soils in areas of high rainfall, relatively common and rapidly colonizing disturbed places.
Diagnosis: type of the genus, the diminutive Aristea africana stands 100–150 mm high is readily distinguished by the predominantly fringed, silvery-translucent spathes and bracts, sometimes brown at the tips and appearing almost woolly, the feature that prompted one of its later synonyms, A. eriophora. Typical of subg. Aristea in the short, broadly winged capsules and flattened, lamellate seeds, A. africana has relatively soft-textured linear to narrowly sword-shaped leaves. The only species with which it may be confused is A. recisa, often a somewhat taller species, which has similar spathes and bracts, but almost always with the spathes rusty brown in the upper half or third. The two species have similar large pollen grains with three confluent narrow apertures which give the grains a trisulcate appearance.

 


 

Specimens whose coordinates are enclosed in square brackets [ ] have been mapped to a standard reference mark based on political units.
 
 
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