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Anoda Cav.

Reference
Diss.1, Diss.Bot.Sida 38 (1785)
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Common name. Anodas. Family Malvaceae.

Tribe Malveae.

Habit and leaf form. Herbs (bristly or glabrescent). Plants unarmed. Usually annual, or perennial (sometimes slightly woody perennials); to 0.1–0.8 m high. Mesophytic. Not heterophyllous. Leaves medium-sized; alternate; spiral; petiolate; non-sheathing; simple. Leaf blades dorsiventral; dissected (3-, 5- or 7-lobed or divided), or entire; ovate, or triangular; pinnately veined, or palmately veined; cordate, or hastate. Mature leaf blades adaxially pubescent; abaxially pubescent. Leaves with stipules (stipules filiform). Leaf blade margins entire, or serrate (rarely). Leaf anatomy. Hairs present; complex hairs present. Extra-floral nectaries absent.

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

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary, or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; axillary; in racemes, or in panicles. Inflorescences axillary. Flowers pedicellate; medium-sized; regular; 5 merous; tetracyclic. Hypogynous disk absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; lobed; lobulate (5-lobed); hairy; valvate; exceeded by the corolla, or more or less equalling the corolla; regular; persistent. Calyx lobes ovate. Epicalyx absent. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous (adnate to the base of the staminal column); hairy abaxially; hairy adaxially; white, or violet (lavender), or blue (purplish blue). Petals obovate. Androecium present. Androecial members indefinite in number. Androecium 50–100 (i.e. ‘many’). Androecial members adnate; all equal; coherent (connate; the filaments fused in a column surrounding the style); 1 - adelphous (the tube attached to the petals); 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens (or rather, half-stamens, each having only a half anther). Stamens 50–100. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; unilocular. Gynoecium 10–50 carpelled (i.e. 10-many). The pistil 10–50 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 10–50 locular (i.e. 10-many). Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; more than 4-branched (10-many, i.e. as many as loculi); apical. Stigmas 10–50 (i.e. 10-many); truncate, or capitate. Placentation axile. Ovules 1 per locule.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit 10–20 mm long; non-fleshy; hairy, or not hairy; a schizocarp (flattened; breaking into indehiscent or 2-valved mericarps). Mericarps 9–20. Dispersal unit the mericarp (beaked or spurred). Seeds 1 per mericarp.

Geography, cytology, number of species. World distribution: tropical America. Adventive. Australian states and territories: Western Australia and Queensland. South-West Botanical Province. A genus of c. 15 species; 1 species in Western Australia; 0 endemic to Western Australia.