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Apocynaceae

Apocynaceae
Apocynaceae image
Frankie Coburn
  • VPAP
  • VPAP
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JANAS 27(2)
PLANT: Trees, shrubs, vines, or perennial herbs, usually with milky sap. LEAVES: opposite, alternate, or whorled, simple, entire, estipulate. INFLORESCENCE: cymes to panicles, or flowers solitary. FLOWERS: perfect, actinomorphic; calyx lobes 5, imbricate in bud; corolla 5-merous, syrnpetalous, twisted in bud, campanulate to salverform; stamens 5, epipetalous, alternating with the lobes, the anthers often connivent around the stigma; pistil 2-carpelled, ovaries 2, superior, distinct or united apically, each l-loculed, the style 1 with a single, often enlarged stigma. FRUIT: (in ours) a pair of follicles, the seeds several, naked or comose. NOTES: 215 genera, 2100 spp., mostly tropical with a few temperate. Includes many important drug plants (Strophanthus, Catharanthus) and ornamentals (Nerium, Vinca, Thevetia). Woodson, R. E. 1938. N. Amer. Flora 29:103-192. Rosatti, T. J. 1989. J. Arnold Arbor. 70:307-401. REFERENCES: McLaughlin, Steven, P. 1994. Apocynaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27, 164-168.
JANAS 27(2)
PLANT: Perennial herbs, vines, or shrubs, mostly with milky sap. LEAVES: opposite, less commonly whorled or alternate, simple, entire; stipules absent or vestigial. INFLORESCENCE: interpetiolar or rarely terminal cymes, in ours, mostly racemose to umbelliform. FLOWERS: perfect, actinomorphic, 5-merous except for the gynoecium; calyx lobes basally connate; corolla sympetalous; stamens epipetalous, arising from the corolla tube, the filaments fused into a ring or tube (column) which surrounds the ovaries and styles, the anthers coherent or connate into a ring (anther head) and adherent to the thickened stigma head forming the central gynostegium, each anther with a terminal hyaline appendage and lateral, typically corneous margins (anther wings), the margins of each pair of adjacent anthers forming a slit leading to the stigmatic surface; pollen grains of each anther sac firmly coherent in a yellow, waxy mass (pollinium), the adjacent pollinia from each pair of anthers attached to a yoke-like, solidified secretion of the stigma head (translator), the translator consisting of 2 translator arms linked to a corpusculum, the entire apparatus of corpusculum, translator arms and paired pollinia (pollinarium) constituting the unit of pollen dispersal; gynoecium of 2 distinct, l-carpellate, superior ovaries united only at the apex by the enlarged, peltate stigma head, this with 5 lateral stigmatic surfaces opposite the anther wing slits; flowers typically with an elaborate, often showy corona (crown) arising from the column or from the region of union of the column and corolla, in ours consisting of a single cycle of 5 flat to infolded, hood-like or nearly spherical segments, distinct or united into a ring or tube, frequently each bearing a horn-like appendage within, or the crown in 2 separate cycles or rarely entirely absent. FRUIT: a many-seeded, ovoid to lanceolate follicle, the seeds typically flat, pear-shaped, with an apical tuft of silky hairs. NOTES: 250 genera, 2000 spp.; chiefly of tropical and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, and including many stem succulents of the Old World deserts, the ecological counterparts of the unrelated New World cacti. The Milkweed Family is elaborately adapted to entomophily: nectar-seeking insects engage the corpuscula with their legs or proboscises, thereby removing pollinia and transfering them to other flowers, where they are inadvertantly inserted between the anther wings, making contact with the stigmatic surfaces. In North America, milkweeds constitute the principal food of the monarch butterfly larva; cardenolides, poisonous compounds related to digitalis, are absorbed by the larvae from the plants and render both larva and adult butterfly unpalatable to avian predators; the striking color patterns of both larva and adult monarch serve to warn birds of this unpalatability. Woodson, R. E., Jr. 1941. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 28:193-244; Bookman, S. S. 1981. Amer. J. Bot. 68:675-679. REFERENCES: Sundell, Eric. 1994. Asclepiadaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27, 169-187.
<< 51 - 100 taxa >>
Allamanda neriifolia
Media resource of Allamanda neriifolia
Allamanda nobilis
Media resource of Allamanda nobilis
Allamanda oenotherifolia
Media resource of Allamanda oenotherifolia
Allamanda polyantha
Media resource of Allamanda polyantha
Allamanda puberula
Media resource of Allamanda puberula
Allamanda schottii
Media resource of Allamanda schottii
Allamanda weberbaueri
Media resource of Allamanda weberbaueri
Allomarkgrafia brenesiana
Media resource of Allomarkgrafia brenesiana
Allomarkgrafia campanulata
Media
not available
Allomarkgrafia ovalis
Media resource of Allomarkgrafia ovalis
Allomarkgrafia plumeriiflora
Media resource of Allomarkgrafia plumeriiflora
Allomarkgrafia tubiflora
Media resource of Allomarkgrafia tubiflora
Allotoonia agglutinata
Media resource of Allotoonia agglutinata
Alstonia actinophylla
Media
not available
Alstonia angustifolia
Media resource of Alstonia angustifolia
Alstonia angustiloba
Media resource of Alstonia angustiloba
Alstonia boonei
Media resource of Alstonia boonei
Alstonia congensis
Media resource of Alstonia congensis
Alstonia constricta
Media resource of Alstonia constricta
Alstonia costata
Media resource of Alstonia costata
Alstonia deplanchei
Media resource of Alstonia deplanchei
Alstonia iwahigensis
Media
not available
Alstonia lanceolata
Media resource of Alstonia lanceolata
Alstonia lenormandii
Media resource of Alstonia lenormandii
Alstonia longifolia
Media resource of Alstonia longifolia
Alstonia macrophylla
Media resource of Alstonia macrophylla
Alstonia muelleriana
Media resource of Alstonia muelleriana
Alstonia neriifolia
Media resource of Alstonia neriifolia
Alstonia parvifolia
Media resource of Alstonia parvifolia
Alstonia rostrata
Media
not available
Alstonia scholaris
Media resource of Alstonia scholaris
Alstonia spatulata
Media resource of Alstonia spatulata
Alstonia spectabilis
Media resource of Alstonia spectabilis
Alstonia venenata
Media resource of Alstonia venenata
Alstonia villosa
Media resource of Alstonia villosa
Alyxia acuminata
Media resource of Alyxia acuminata
Alyxia angustifolia
Media resource of Alyxia angustifolia
Alyxia annamensis
Media resource of Alyxia annamensis
Alyxia bracteolosa
Media resource of Alyxia bracteolosa
Alyxia buxifolia
Media resource of Alyxia buxifolia
Alyxia concatenata
Media resource of Alyxia concatenata
Alyxia erythrosperma
Media
not available
Alyxia fascicularis
Media resource of Alyxia fascicularis
Alyxia gracilis
Media resource of Alyxia gracilis
Alyxia gynopogon
Media
not available
Alyxia hainanensis
Media
not available
Alyxia ilicifolia
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not available
Alyxia insularis
Media resource of Alyxia insularis
Alyxia loeseneriana
Media resource of Alyxia loeseneriana
Alyxia marginata
Media
not available
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