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(Last Modified On 5/10/2013)
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(Last Modified On 5/10/2013)
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Genus
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Stachytarpheta Vahl
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PlaceOfPublication
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Enum. 1: 205. 1805, nom. cons.
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Synonym
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Serarda Adans., Fam. P1. 2: 12. 1763. Sherardia Vaill. ex Adans., Fam. P1. 2: 198. 1763. Valerianoides Boeth. ex Medic., Phil. Bot. 1: 177. 1789, nom. rejic. Abena Neck., Elem. 1: 296. 1790. Vermicularia Moench, Meth. Suppl. 150. 1802, nom. rejic. Cymburus Salisb., Parad. Lond. pl. 49. 1806. Melasanthus Pohl, P1. Bras. Ic. 1: 75, pl. 60. 1827. Stachytarpha Link, Enum. Hort. Berol. 1: 18. 1827. Tarpheta Raf., Fl. Tellur. 2: 103. 1836.
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Description
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Annual or perennial herbs or low shrubs, glabrous throughout or villous with simple trichomes. Leaves opposite or alternate, dentate, often rugose. Inflores- cences terminal, spicate, the spikes elongate or abbreviated, densely or loosely many-flowered, occasionally few-flowered, the flowers sessile or semi-immersed in furrows in the rachis of the spike, each solitary in the axil of a bract; bracts small and narrow, appressed or spreading, or large and ovate or lanceolate, often rigid and imbricate, persistent. Flowers with the calyx long, narrowly tubular, mem- branous or herbaceous, 5-costate, 5-lobed, or 5-dentate apically, the teeth equal or unequal, unchanged in fruit or sometimes variously split in age; corolla white, blue, purple, or red, gamopetalous, usually hypocrateriform, the tube cylindric, straight or incurved, slender throughout or ampliate apically, the limb spreading, 5-parted, the lobes broad, often orbicular, obtuse or retuse apically, equal or more or less unequal; perfect stamens 2, anterior, inserted above the middle of the corolla-tube, included, the filaments short, the anthers unappendaged, the thecae divergent and dehiscing in one continuous line, staminodes 2, posterior, small or minute; ovary 2-loculed, each locule 1-ovuled, the ovule attached laterally near the base of the locule, the style elongate, filiform, the stigma terminal, orbicular, capitate or subcapitate. Fruits oblong-linear, dry, included by the fruiting-calyx, splitting at maturity into 2 long, hard, narrow, truncate, 1-seeded cocci; seeds erect, linear, without endosperm.
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Habit
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herbs shrubs
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Distribution
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A genus of about 140 species and infraspecific entities, widely distributed in subtropical and tropical America, with a few (mostly naturalized) in tropical Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
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Key
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a. Rachis heavy and thick, deeply excavated (furrowed) in fruit ...... 1. S. jamaicensis aa. Rachis slender, shallowly excavated (furrowed) in fruit. b. Spikes glabrous or subglabrous throughout, the bracts 5-7 mm long ...... 2. S. guatemalensis bb. Spikes more or less puberulent throughout, the bracts about 4 mm long; leaf-blades mostly smaller and rounded or obtuse apically ...... 3. S. cayennensis
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