e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1685613473201_035392328091507386" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Rubi<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1685613473201_8651914122689994" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>aceae
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

DICOTYLEDON - ASTERIDAE - RUBIALES - Rubiaceae

Compiled by E. Retief & O.A. Leistner

Description:

  • Trees, shrubs, annual or perennial herbs, sometimes spiny or prickly; raphides (needle-shaped calcium oxalate crystals) present or 0
  • Leaves opposite or whorled, sessile or petiolate, simple, usually entire
  • Stipules interpetiolar (sometimes reduced to an interpetiolar line), sometimes intrapetiolar, often basally fused into a stipular sheath, entire or divided into lobes or fimbriae, often tipped or separated by mucilaginous hairs known as colleters
  • Flowers bisexual, rarely unisexual, usually regular, quite often heterostylous with 2 or rarely 3 forms (di-, trimorphic); rarely solitary, mostly in various terminal or axillary, basically cymose inflorescences
  • Calyx gamosepalous, (3)4- or 5(-8)-lobed, cup-shaped or tubular, entire, toothed, or lobed, sometimes obsolete, sometimes 1 or more lobes foliaceous
  • Corolla gamopetalous, (3)4- or 5(10)-lobed, glabrous or hairy outside and variously hairy within; tube campanulate, funnel-shaped, cylindric, rarely urceolate or saucer-shaped; lobes usually equal, shorter or longer than tube, often reflexed, valvate, contorted or sometimes imbricate
  • Disc various, sometimes 0
  • Stamens as many as and alternating with corolla lobes, rarely fewer, arising in corolla tube; filaments sometimes 0; anthers 2-thecous, basi- or dorsifixed, usually dehiscing by longitudinal slits, often apiculate, sometimes sagittate, sometimes hairy
  • Ovary inferior, rarely half-inferior, 1-10-locular; placentation axile or (in some Gardenieae) parietal; ovules 1-many in each locule, erect, basal or horizontal; style either simple, usually long and narrow and apically divided into 2 or more linear to clavate stigmatic lobes; or ending in an enlarged, variously shaped stigmatic knob (pollen presenter); or ± 0 and with (1)2 long, hairy stigmas (in wind-pollinated Anthospermeae)
  • Fruit a drupe, berry or capsule, sometimes crowned with persistent sepals, or indehiscent, or breaking up into cocci
  • Seeds small to fairly large, ornamented to smooth, sometimes winged; embryo usually straight and embedded in oily endosperm

Nomenclature:

  • Rubiaceae
    • Jussieu: 198 (1789)
    • Candolle: 341 (1830)
    • Sonder: 1 (1865)
    • Hooker: 7 (1873)
    • Hiern: 3 (1877)
    • Schumann: 1 (1891)
    • Phillips: 718 (1951)
    • Verdcourt: 209 (1958)
    • Launert: 1 (1966)
    • Dyer: 602 (1975)
    • Verdcourt: 1 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Genera 630, species 10 200, cosmopolitan but especially tropics and warm regions
  • Southern Africa: Genera 61, species 228

References:

  • BRIDSON, D.M. 1998. Rubiaceae. Flora zambesiaca 5,2
  • CANDOLLE, A.P. DE. 1830. Prodromus 4. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
  • DYER, R.A. 1975. The genera of southern African flowering plants, Vol. 1. Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria
  • HIERN, W.P. 1877. Rubiaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 3
  • HOOKER, J.D. 1873. Rubiaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 2. L. Reeve, London
  • JUSSIEU, A.L. DE. 1789. Genera plantarum. Ziegler, Zürich
  • LAUNERT, E. 1966. Rubiaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 115
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • ROBBRECHT, E. 1988. Tropical woody Rubiaceae. Opera Botanica Belgica 1
  • SCHUMANN, K.M. 1891. Rubiaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4,4
  • SONDER, O.W. 1865. Rubiaceae. Flora capensis 3
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1958. Remarks on the classification of the Rubiaceae. Bulletin Rijksplantentuin, Brussels 28
  • VERDCOURT, B. 1976. Flora of tropical East Africa. Rubiaceae (part 1)