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(Last Modified On 4/2/2013)
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(Last Modified On 4/2/2013)
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Family
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MENYANTHACEAE
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Contributor
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THOMAS S. ELIAS
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Description
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Herbs, aquatic or semiaquatic. Leaves alternate, entire, simple or trifoliolate, often orbicular and peltate, petiole sheathing at the base, exstipulate. Inflores- cences racemose, solitary, paired, or fasciculate, or in many-flowered cymes, panicles, or involucrate heads. Flowers bisexual, regular; calyx 5-mdrous, free or fused basally; corolla 5-merous, fused basally to form a short tube, the lobes valvate or induplicate-valvate, the margins and/or interior often fimbriate or barbate; stamens 5, alternate with the petals and inserted near the base of the corolla tube, the anthers 2-locular, sagittate, versatile; hypogynous nectaries usually present; pistil 1, the ovary superior, 1-locular, with 2 parietal placentas, ovules oo, the style simple, the stigma bifid. Fruit a capsule, 2- or 4-valved, rarely fleshy and indehiscent; seeds few to numerous, sometimes winged, endosperm copious, embryo small.-x = 9, 17.
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Habit
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Herbs
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Distribution
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A small family of five genera and ca 30-35 species occurring in temperate and tropical regions of both hemispheres.
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Note
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The genera have been included by earlier workers (Bentham & Hooker, Gen. PI. 2: 819, 1876; Gilg in Engler & Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfam. 4(2): 62, 1876) as a tribe or subfamily of the Gentianaceae. Later workers (Hutchinson, Fam. Fl. PI. 1: 451, ed. 2, 1959; Cronquist, Evol. & Class. Fl. PI. 288-289, 1968) have maintained them as a distinct family, separated from the Gentianaceae by the alternate leaves and the valvate or induplicate-valvate aestivation. Only, the genus Nymphoides is found in Panama.
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