Limonium Mill.

Scientific Description

Family Plumbaginaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Dwarf shrubs, or herbs. Perennial, or annual (rarely); plants with a basal concentration of leaves, or with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves (densely leafy branches sometimes present). Young stems terete or winged. Helophytic, or mesophytic, or xerophytic. Leaves alternate; spiral; ‘herbaceous’, or leathery; petiolate to sessile; sheathing, or non-sheathing; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades entire (lobed); pinnately veined, or palmately veined to parallel-veined. Leaves with stipules, or without stipules; without a persistent basal meristem. Stem anatomy. Nodes tri-lacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring, or anomalous.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Plants homostylous, or heterostylous. Entomophilous; via hymenoptera, via lepidoptera, and via diptera.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’. Inflorescence 1–8(-12) flowered. Flowers in spikes (which often form a 1-sided pedunculate cyme or panicle). The terminal inflorescence unit cymose, or racemose. Inflorescences scapiflorous, or not scapiflorous; terminal. Flowers subsessile; bracteate (bracts 3, the 2 outer ones small, the inner larger and embracing the flowers); bracteolate; small to medium-sized; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10, or 15 (rarely); 2 -whorled; isomerous, or anisomerous (rarely). Calyx 5, or 10 (rarely); 1 -whorled; gamosepalous (the lower part of the tube 5–10-ribbed, the ribs often extended; the upper part membranous or chartaceous, coloured, often greatly expanded towards the apex); entire, or lobed; valvate, or plicate in bud; infundibular, obconic or tubular; regular; persistent. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; gamopetalous (divided nearly to the base or with a short tube); lobed; imbricate, or contorted; regular; white to yellow; fleshy, or not fleshy; persistent, or deciduous. Androecium 5. Androecial members adnate (to the corolla basally); free of one another, or coherent; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth; alternisepalous; all opposite the corolla members. Anthers dorsifixed, or basifixed; versatile, or non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 5 carpelled. The pistil 1 celled. Carpels isomerous with the perianth. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior. Ovary unilocular; 1 locular. Styles 5; free; apical. Stigmas 5; dry type; papillate; Group II type. Placentation basal. Ovules in the single cavity 1; pendulous (from a long, basally attached funicle); anatropous (or circinnotropous).

Fruit and seed features. Fruit dehiscent, or indehiscent; a capsule, or a nut. Seeds endospermic, or non-endospermic; winged. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.

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.

Additional characters Stigmas the stigmatic area linear.