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(Last Modified On 1/28/2013)
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(Last Modified On 1/28/2013)
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Family
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AIZOACEAE
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Contributor
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LORIN I. NEVLING, JR.
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Description
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Annual or perennial herbaceous or suffruticose plants, prostrate or upright, often succulent. Leaves usually simple, alternate, opposite or pseudoverticellate, often fleshy, sometimes reduced to scales, entire; stipules scarious or absent. In- florescences axillary or terminal, modified cymes or the flowers solitary. Flowers bisexual, polygamodioecious or unisexual, actinomorphic, often small. Perianth monochlamydeous, usually 4- or 5-parted, free or connate, sometimes appendaged on the outer surface, often persistent in fruit. Stamens (3), 4, 5 or many, the outermost often sterile and petaloid (but not in our species), the filaments free or variously connate at the base into fascicles or into a monadelphous sheath, free or adnate to the perianth, the anthers oblong or linear, small, dehiscing longi- tudinally. Pistil 1, the ovary superior to inferior, 1-5 (-20) loculate, the placenta- tion axile, parietal or basal, the ovules solitary to many per locule, anatropous or campylotropous, the styles as many as the locules. Fruit a loculicidal or circum- scissile capsule or indehiscent and either baccate or nut-like; seed with mealy endosperm, sometimes strophiolate, the embryo curved.
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Habit
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herb
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Distribution
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A large weedy family particularly well-developed in South Africa.
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Note
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Three genera are represented in Panama, each by a single species. A fourth genus, Glinus, with a single species [G. radiatus (Ruiz & Pav.) Rohrb.] has been reported from Panama. I have been unable to locate a voucher for this record but have included the genus in the key to genera. This study is based primarily on the work of F. Pax and K. Hoffman (in Natur- Pflanzenf. 16c:179-233. 1934) and P. Wilson (in North Amer. Fl. 21:267-277. 1932).
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Key
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a. Leaves basal or pseudoverticellate, not fleshy; tepals distinct to the base or nearly so, with or without appendages on the outer surface beneath the apex; fruit a loculicidal capsule, 3- to 5-loculate; seeds strophiolate or estrophiolate. b. Plants glabrous; leaves generally linear; flowers pedicellate; tepals distinct to the base, without appendages; seeds estrophiolate. - 1. MOLLUGo bb. Plants tomentulose; leaves obovate, oblanceolate or rounded- spatulate; flowers sessile or short-pedicellate; tepals distinct to the base or nearly so, with appendages; seeds strophiolate ..................... GLINUS aa. Leaves opposite, fleshy; tepals connate, with appendages on the outer surface beneath the apex; fruit a circumscissile capsule, 1- to 5- loculate; seeds estrophiolate. c. Leaves obovate to rounded-spatulate, strikingly unequal; ovary 1- or 2-loculate; styles 1 or 2; seeds few ............................... ............. 2. TRIANTHEMA cc. Leaves linear, elliptic or narrowly obovate, more or less equal; ovary 3- to 5-loculate; styles 3 to 5; seeds numerous ..................... 3. SESUVIUM
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