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Astrotricha DC.

Reference
Coll.Mém. 5:29, t. 5, 6 (1829)
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Family Araliaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs; bearing essential oils, or without essential oils; resinous. Plants with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Self supporting (usually strongly erect). Often pachycaul. Not heterophyllous. Leaves alternate; leathery; petiolate (usually), or subsessile; sheathing, or non-sheathing. Leaf sheaths with free margins. Leaves gland-dotted, or not gland-dotted; aromatic, or without marked odour; simple; not peltate, or peltate (rarely). Leaf blades entire; pinnately veined, or palmately veined; cordate, or cuneate at the base, or rounded at the base. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins flat to revolute. Vegetative buds scaly. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present (usually, on underside of leaves); complex hairs usually present. Complex hairs stellate. Stem anatomy. Nodes multilacunar, or penta-lacunar, or tri-lacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

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

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in umbels. Inflorescences arranged in terminal panicles, often with 3 or 4 orders of branching, often leaf-interrupted near base. Flowers bracteolate; 5 merous. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; lobed; minutely 5- toothed; often open in bud. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous; imbricate, or valvate; regular; hairy abaxially, or glabrous abaxially (rarely); glabrous adaxially; white to cream, or yellow, or purple. Androecium 5. Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; inferior, or superior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular. Epigynous disk present. Styles 2; free (becoming recurved). Stigmas wet type, or dry type; papillate; Group II type and Group III type. Placentation apical. Ovules 1(–2) per locule; pendulous; epitropous; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; a schizocarp. Mericarps 2, or 1 (when one aborted); with or without wings. Seeds 1 per mericarp. Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Cotyledons 2. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.

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

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. Not endemic to Australia. Australian states and territories: Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.