Romneya Harv.

Scientific Description

Family Papaveraceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs (creeping underground, rootstocks give rise to large clumps from an original plant); non-laticiferous and without coloured juice (with watery juice). Mesophytic. Leaves alternate; spiral; petiolate; non-sheathing; simple. Leaf blades dissected; pinnatifid; pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves without stipules; without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hydathodes present, or absent. Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar, or tri-lacunar. Secondary thickening absent, or developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary (at the ends of branches); medium-sized, or large; operculate (calyptrate), or not operculate; odourless; 3 merous; tetracyclic to pentacyclic to polycyclic. Floral receptacle developing an androphore, or developing a gynophore, or with neither androphore nor gynophore. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 9; 3 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 3 (with a broad, membranous dorsal wing); 1 -whorled; polysepalous; imbricate; unequal but not bilabiate, or regular (? rather asymmetrical); not persistent (caducous). Corolla 6; 2 -whorled (3+3); polypetalous; imbricate and crumpled in bud; regular; white; not spurred. Androecium 50–100 (i.e. ‘many’). Androecial sequence determinable, or not determinable. Androecial members maturing centripetally; free of the perianth; free of one another; 3–15 -whorled (? generally indefinite in 2- or 3-merous, regularly alternating whorls). Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 50–100 (i.e. ‘many’); polystemonous. Anthers basifixed; non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 7–12 carpelled. The pistil 7–12 celled. Carpels increased in number relative to the perianth. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous (depending on interpretation of confluent stigmas); superior. Ovary plurilocular; 7–12 locular. Locules secondarily divided by ‘false septa’, or without ‘false septa’. Gynoecium non-stylate. Stigmas numerous, connate at base into ring; dorsal to the carpels, or commissural, or dorsal to the carpels and commissural; dry type; papillate; Group II type. Placentation axile. Ovules 20–50 per locule (i.e. ‘many’); horizontal, or ascending; with superior or lateral raphe; arillate, or non-arillate; anatropous, or campylotropous, or amphitropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; hairy (densely covered with stiff, yellowish bristles); dehiscent; a capsule (cylindric to ovoid, coriaceous, narrowed at top). Capsules via 7–12 basipetal valves, splitting to middle of capsule. Fruit many seeded. Seeds irregularly angular to ellipsoid; copiously endospermic. Endosperm oily. Embryo rudimentary at the time of seed release, or weakly differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar, or cryptocotylar.

Physiology, biochemistry. Aluminium accumulation not found. Photosynthetic pathway: C₃.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Adventive. Australian states and territories: Western Australia. South-West Botanical Province.

Economic uses, etc. Cultivated as ornamentals.