Wigandia Kunth

Scientific Description

Family Hydrophyllaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Herbs, or shrubs. Herbs perennial; plants with a basal concentration of leaves, or with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Mesophytic. Leaves medium-sized to large; alternate; spiral; petiolate; non-sheathing; without marked odour, or foetid; simple. Leaf blades entire; pinnately veined, or palmately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins dentate. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Glandular hairs present. Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

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

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences terminal; straightening and elongating after anthesis, 1-sided, the flowers in 2 rows. Flowers sessile; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous (basally); imbricate; regular; persistent. Epicalyx absent. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; not appendiculate; gamopetalous; imbricate, or contorted; campanulate; regular; purple and white. Corolla lobes rounded. Androecium 5. Androecial members adnate (to the corolla tube); all equal, or markedly unequal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous (alternating with the petals); all alternating with the corolla members. Anthers dorsifixed; versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; appendaged. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 1 celled, or 2 celled (then falsely 2-celled). Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior, or partly inferior. Ovary unilocular, or plurilocular; 1 locular, or 2 locular. Gynoecium median; stylate. Styles 2; free; attenuate from the ovary; apical. Stigmas clavate, or capitate; dry type; papillate; Group II type. Placentation when unilocular, parietal; when bilocular, axile. Ovules in the single cavity when unilocular, 10–50 (i.e. ‘numerous’); when bilocular 10–50 per locule (i.e. ‘numerous’); funicled, or sessile; pendulous (when funicled); epitropous; non-arillate; anatropous, or amphitropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; hairy; dehiscent; a capsule. Seeds copiously endospermic. Endosperm oily. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.

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