genus descriptions: SSTAs

Bertiera

Aubl.
Description:
Small trees or shrubs, rarely lianas. Leaves shortly petiolate; petioles normally channelled above; blades thin or scarcely coriaceous, mid- and lateral nerves usually prominent beneath; stipules persistent, usually connate above nodes for a short distance. Flowers moderate in size or small, borne in terminal, spicate thyrsoid panicles, scorpioid cymes or spherical compact heads. Calyx with limb produced above tube, cup-shaped and frequently wider than tube, truncate or 5-toothed or -lobed. Corolla with hairy throat, often with walls of tube toughened or thick; tube exceeding calyx-limb; lobes (4)5, usually acuminate or apiculate, contorted in bud. Stamens: anthers (4)5, subsessile, attached by very short filaments near base, included, linear, sagittate or bilobed at base, connective extended into an apiculate apex. Disc glabrous, fleshy, cup-shaped, or annular. Ovary 2-locular with numerous ovules inserted on a thickened placenta; stigma borne on style +/- club-shaped, formed from 2 flattened appressed branches (seldom separating), with 10 membranous linear vanes which fit between anthers in bud. Fruit indehiscent, ovoid or globose, often coriaceous; calyx persistent; pedicels sometimes accrescent. Seeds many, red-brown to black, angular, rugulose or granulose.
Distribution:
Species 55, tropical America and Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 4, Angola, Zambia.
Source:
SSTA
Synonym(s):
Justenia Hiern: 451 (1898); Good: 4 (1926b).

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:34 -- Emily Smith
Cuviera

DC.
Description:
Small trees or shrubs, unarmed or sometimes spinose. Leaves opposite, often large, mostly +/- oblong or elliptic, petiolate, usually coriaceous and persistent; stipules small, basally +/- connate, often acuminate, deciduous. Flowers bisexual or sometimes sterile, in subsessile or pedunculate, many-flowered axillary cymes; bracts and bracteoles linear to lanceolate or elliptic, often leaf-like and accrescent. Calyx: tube obconic or turbinate, sometimes 3- or 4-angled; limb tube +/- suppressed; lobes 3-6, linear to ovate, often leaf-like and accrescent, mostly longer than corolla, persistent. Corolla funnel-shaped, campanulate or barrel-shaped, retrorsely hairy or bristly inside but throat glabrous, outside glabrous or pilose; lobes 5 or 6, spreading or reflexed, elongate, mostly caudate-acuminate, sometimes very markedly so. Stamens 5, arising in throat; anthers exserted. Disc depressed, lobed. Style thick, narrowed at both ends, stiffly pubescent to glabrous, sometimes with a conspicuous globular swelling near base; pollen presenter cylindric, mitriform or peltate, 2-10-grooved. Ovary (1)2-5-locular; ovules solitary in each locule, pendulous. Fruit drupaceous, often large, ovoid or subglobose, sometimes obscurely angled, with 1-5, 1-seeded pyrenes.
Distribution:
Species +/- 20, trop. Africa, mostly western and central; sthn trop. Afr. 4, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique.
Source:
SSTA

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:34 -- Emily Smith
Aoranthe

Somers
Description:
Trees or lianas, sometimes shrubby; younger parts with silky or tomentose indumentum; twigs terete, often hollow. Leaves decussate, shortly petiolate, oblong to obovate, often unequal at base, hirsute, especially on nerves; tuft-domatia in axis of secondary and tertiary nerves; mesophyll containing crystal stars visible as very small dots; stipules interpetiolar, shortly connate at base, deciduous, leaving a ring of hairs on scar. Inflorescence terminal, pseudoaxillary, many-flowered, shortly pedunculate, erect, rarely ramiflorous. Flowers bisexual. Calyx cupular to tubular, with 5, short to long teeth, silky inside and outside; colleters present on inside. Corolla: tube shortly cylindrical in lower part, campanulate in upper part, silky outside except area at base, glabrous inside except 5 hair tufts in basal part; lobes 5, contorted to right, ovate to circular. Stamens 5, included in upper part of tube; filaments very short; anthers infra-medifixed, connective containing tannin cells. Ovary 2-locular; placentation axile, placenta T-shaped in cross section; ovules many, arranged all around placenta; style somewhat shorter than tube, cylindric with 10 longitudinal grooves, thickened at top into a club-shaped stigma. Disc cylindric, 5-lobed, often sparsely hispid on upper surface. Fruit 2-locular, narrowly or broadly ellipsoid, ribbed and often wrinkled between ribs, crowned with persistent calyx; pericarp fleshy, containing stony strings; endocarp thin. Seeds many, irregularly angular; hilum small, comma-shaped; embryo straight.
Distribution:
Species 5, trop. Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 3, Angola.
Source:
SSTA
Synonym(s):
Randia L. in part. Porterandia as used for African species, not of Ridley; Halle: 118 (1970).

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:34 -- Emily Smith
Atractogyne

Pierre
Description:
Tall lianes with flexible stems. Leaves petiolate, ovate, symmetrical, acuminate, base rounded to cordate, with 4-6(7) arcuate-ascending secondary nerves on each side of midrib, puberulous on midrib and nerves beneath; axillary domatia with a small rounded, ciliate opening; interpetiolar stipules small, apiculate, fused into a short tube at base. Inflorescences terminal, +/- contracted cymes on lateral branches; floral buds elongate, subacute. Flowers bisexual or male, protandrous. Calyx tubular with 5 pointed lobes. Corolla campanulate; lobes 5, ovate, contorted in bud. Stamens arising on lower half of corolla tube; filaments very short, attached to lower 1/4 of anther; anthers with or without pollen; connective prolonged beyond thecae; pollen in tedrads. Disc annular. Ovary 2-locular; ovules many, axile; style slender in basal part, then swollen and furrowed in upper 3/4; stigma 2-lobed, purple, not opening and spreading when non-functional. Fruit barrel-shaped with a long peduncle, smooth when ripe, solitary or few in an infructescence; exocarp subcoriaceous; seeds embedded in soft, juicy pulp. Seeds many, slightly angular; endosperm present; embryo straight with rounded cotyledons.
Distribution:
Species 2, W Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 1: Atractogyne bracteata (Wernham) Hutch. & Dalziel, Angola.
Source:
SSTA
Synonym(s):
Afrohamelia Wernham; Good: 8 (1926b); Gossweiler & Mendonca: 57 (1939).

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:34 -- Emily Smith
Aidia

Lour.
Description:
Small trees or shrubs. Leaves opposite, petiolate, in equal pairs or at flower-bearing nodes unequal, or even one reduced to a deciduous scale; domatia sometimes present; stipules basally +/- triangular, erect, acute to subulate, often deciduous. Flowers bisexual, pedicellate, 5-merous, in unilateral, apparently axillary inflorescences at every other node; inflorescences lax or condensed cymes up to 70 mm long, few- to many-flowered, subsessile or pedunculate; bracts small, often deciduous. Calyx: tube ovoid or turbinate; tubular part of limb well-developed; lobes reduced or at least not over 3 mm long. Corolla white, yellow or green, the central part sometimes red; tube cylindric, with throat hairy; lobes contorted, overlapping to the left, acute. Stamens exserted; filaments arising in upper part of throat; anthers sagittate; pollen grains simple. Ovary 2(3)-locular, each locule containing a peltate hemispherical many-ovuled placenta; style exserted, developed into an oblong striate club of 2 adhering lobes. Fruit globose, small, marked with a circular scar left by the deciduous calyx-limb. Seeds many.
Distribution:
Species 18, tropical Asia and Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 3, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique.
Source:
SSTA
Synonym(s):
Randia L. in part; Hiern: 457 (1898); Good: 12 (1926b).

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:34 -- Emily Smith
Argocoffeopsis

Lebrun
Description:
Lianas climbing by means of horizontal or recurved lateral branches, sometimes shrubs; bark papery, brown or grey, peeling off characteristically. Leaves in some species deciduous and then flowers appearing before leaves; often dimorphic: leaves on lateral twigs cuneate and oblong and short-lived; leaves on main twigs cordate and shorter; stipules forming a short sheath around stem with 2 interpetiolar awns. Flowers terminal but mostly appearing lateral by position on axillary and opposite brachyblasts with reduced or scarious leaves. Calyx small, mostly hidden by leaves of brachyblasts surrounding base of flower as an epicalyx; tube short; lobes 5-8, minute. Corolla salver-shaped, lobes 5-8, contorted to left. Stamens: anthers arising in throat of corolla, either sessile and half included, or with a distinct filament and exserted. Ovary 2-locular; ovules 1 per locule. Fruit a berry-like drupe; endocarp membranous. Seeds 1 per locule, hemispherical, without a groove; endosperm entire, without any adaxial intrusion; embryo half as high as seed; radicle inferior.
Distribution:
Species 9, trop. Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 2, Angola, Zambia.
Source:
SSTA

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:34 -- Emily Smith
Zingiber

Boehm.
Description:
Perennial herbs with creeping, aromatic, fleshy rhizome; leafy stems usually separate from flowering ones. Inflorescence cylindric to ovoid; peduncle long; bracts closely imbricate or with free apices, often brightly coloured, each enclosing a 1(2
Distribution:
Species 60, Indomalesia to E Asia and tropical Australia. *Zingiber officinale Roscoe (Ginger) and *Z. zerumbet (L.) Sm. are cultivated and may persist as relics of cultivation.
Source:
SSTA

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:23 -- Emily Smith
Oreobambos

K.Schum.
Description:
Tall woody bamboos. Leaf blade lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, usually glabrous, finally disarticulating from sheath. Inflorescence narrow, slender, large, composed of clusters of spikelets on opposite sides of its branches; each cluster borne in axil of a deciduous sheath which is usually without a lamina. Spikelets sessile, 2-flowered, terete or somewhat laterally compressed, muticous subtended by a pseudo-involucre of broad coriaceous bracts; florets both bisexual; rachilla disarticulating beneath upper glume, produced as a fine bristle beyond upper floret; lower glume absent; upper glume 11
Distribution:
Monospecific: Oreobambos buchwaldii K.Schum., Zambia, Malawi, confined to the eastern African mountains.
Source:
SSTA

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:23 -- Emily Smith
Orthoclada

P.Beauv.
Description:
Robust perennial grasses with erect or ascending culms and a stout, horizontally creeping rhizome; ligule membranous, truncate, short. Leaf blade with a short pseudopetiole; venation tessellate. Inflorescences loose open panicles. Spikelets pedicelled, laterally compressed, imbricate, awnless, 1
Distribution:
Species described 2: 1 in tropical America, 1 in trop. Africa: Orthoclada africana C.E.Hubb.; sthn trop. Afr.: Zambia.
Source:
SSTA

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:23 -- Emily Smith
Heteropholis

C.E.Hubb.
Description:
Perennials arising from a short scaly rhizome. Leaf blade flat, gradually tapering to a flexuouse apex; ligule shortly membranous. Inflorescence a single axillary raceme; racemes cylindric or slightly dorsally compressed; internodes thickened, clavate, fixed to adjacent pedicel. Sessile spikelet
Distribution:
Species 4, Indo-China, Philippines, and trop. Africa; sthn trop. Afr. 1: Heteropholis sulcata (Stapf) C.E.Hubb., Angola, Zambia, Malawi.
Source:
SSTA

Mon, 2009-03-23 15:23 -- Emily Smith

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