- Name Status
- Current
Scientific Description
Family Sometimes included in Saxifragaceae.
Habit and leaf form. Small pilose herbs. Annual; plants with a basal concentration of leaves. Mesophytic. Leaves alternate; spiral; petiolate (basal), or sessile (cauline); non-sheathing; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades dissected, or entire; when dissected, pinnatifid; pinnately veined. Leaves without stipules; without a persistent basal meristem.
Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite.
Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose. Inflorescences dichotomous cymes. Flowers bracteate; minute; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; pentacyclic. Free hypanthium present. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; deeply blunt-lobed; valvate; regular; with the median member posterior. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous; regular. Androecium 5. Androecial members free of the perianth; all equal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; all alternating with the corolla members; filantherous (the filaments subulate, the anthers small). Anthers dorsifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse to latrorse. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; superior to partly inferior (shortly adnate to the hypanthium at the base). Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular. Styles 2; free; attenuate from the ovary; apical. Stigmas dorsal to the carpels. Placentation axile to basal (axile, sub-basal). Ovules 1 per locule; ascending; non-arillate; anatropous.
Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; dehiscent; a capsule (‘subdidymous’). Capsules loculicidal. Seeds endospermic.
Geography, cytology, number of species. Australian. World distribution: Southwest Australia. 1 species.