Nyctaginaceae, the Four
O'Clock Family, is a family of around 33 genera and 290 species of flowering plants, widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions, with a few representatives in temperate regions. The family has a unique fruit type, called an
"anthocarp", and many genera have extremely large (>100 ?m) pollen grains.
The family has been almost universally recognized by plant taxonomists. The APG II system (2003; unchanged from the APG system of 1998), assigns it to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots.
A phylogenetic study by Levin has justified the combination of Selinocarpus and Ammocodon into the genus Acleisanthes. The genus Izabalea is now considered a synonym of Agonandra, a genus in Opiliaceae. A more recent study by Douglas and Manos clarified the relationships among almost all of the genera in the family and demonstrated that a substantial diversification of herbaceous genera has occurred in arid North America. Many genera of Nyctaginaceae possess unusual characters. Notable examples include sticky bands on the stems between the nodes, cleistogamous flowers (which self-pollinate without opening), or , the ability to grow on soils with a high
concentration of gypsum.
The family contains one food crop, the mauka (Mirabilis extensa), a root vegetable of minor local importance in the Andes. Garden Four-O'Clocks
Mirabilis jalapa species are grown as ornamental plants, as are species of Bougainvillea (Bougainvillea glabra, B. spectabilis, and numerous hybrids), Bougainvillea and Abronia are commonly cultivated in warmer regions.
Levin, 2000, Phylogenetic relationships within Nyctaginaceae tribe Nyctagineae: Evidence from nuclear and chloroplast genomes. Systematic Botany 24(4) 738-750. (Subscription req.)
Douglas, NA and Manos, PS. 2007. Molecular phylogeny of Nyctaginaceae: taxonomy, biogeography, and characters associated with a radiation of xerophytic genera in North America. American Journal of Botany 94(5) 856-872.
Acleisanthes is a genus of flowering plants in the Bougainvillea family, Nyctaginaceae. There are currently 16 species. The generic name is derived from the Greek words a??e??t?? (akleistos), meaning "not closed," and a???? (anthos), meaning "flower." Plants of this genus are known commonly as trumpets due to the elongated, open-ended shape of their flowers. These are arid-adapted perennials with thick taproots which are usually compact and low to the ground or slightly ascending. An individual plant may have cleistogamous (unopening and self-pollinating) flowers as well as opening flowers which are usually nocturnal as a water-saving adaptation and are pollinated by night-flying or crepuscular insects such as hawkmoths. Flowers are usually white, sometimes yellow. These plants are native to the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts of Mexico and the United States. [more]
Allionia
Allionia, commonly known as windmills or trailing four o'clock, is a genus of two species widespread in the western hemisphere. They are unusual in their blooms, which actually consist of three separate flowers appearing to be a single flower. [more]
Acleisanthes is a genus of flowering plants in the Bougainvillea family, Nyctaginaceae. There are currently 16 species. The generic name is derived from the Greek words a??e??t?? (akleistos), meaning "not closed," and a???? (anthos), meaning "flower." Plants of this genus are known commonly as trumpets due to the elongated, open-ended shape of their flowers. These are arid-adapted perennials with thick taproots which are usually compact and low to the ground or slightly ascending. An individual plant may have cleistogamous (unopening and self-pollinating) flowers as well as opening flowers which are usually nocturnal as a water-saving adaptation and are pollinated by night-flying or crepuscular insects such as hawkmoths. Flowers are usually white, sometimes yellow. These plants are native to the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts of Mexico and the United States. [more]
Anulocaulis is a small genus of flowering plants known generally as ringstems. These five species are sometimes treated as members of genus Boerhavia. Ringstems are thickly-rooted perennial wildflowers with glutinous brown bands at their stem internodes, the trait which gives them their common and Latin names. They bear tubular flowers at the tops of their stems. Ringstems are native to North America. [more]
Herbs,annualorperennial, sometimes suffrutescent at base, slender, often glandular, glabrous, or pubescent, from slender and soft or stout, ± woody, and ropelike or fusiformtaproot.Stemsprocumbent, decumbent, ascending, or erect, unarmed, with or without glutinousbands on internodes. Leavespetiolate, pairs unequal in size in each pair; blade thin or thick and slightly fleshy, base symmetric to asymmetric.Inflorescencesterminal and axillary, pedunculate or not clearly pedunculate because of repeated branching from distalaxils, diffuse, and then usually widely cymose, paniculate, or thyrsiform, terminal portions cymose, racemose, spicate, subumbellate, umbellate, subcapitate, or capitate, rarely borne singly; bracts ± persistent and not accrescent, or deciduous, 1-3 beneath each flower, distinct, lanceolate, minute, thin, translucent.Flowersbisexual, chasmogamous; perianth radially symmetric or slightly bilaterally symmetric, campanulate or widely funnelform, constricted beyond ovaries, tube abruptly expanded to (4-) 5-lobed limb; stamens 2-8, included or exserted; styles at or extending beyond anthers; stigmaspeltate.Fruits fusiform, clavate, oblong-clavate, obovoid, or obpyramidal, stiffly coriaceous; ribs (3-) 5, rounded, angular, or winglike, smooth, glabrous or glandular-pubescent; sulci smooth or rugose, epidermal surface smooth, papillate, or minutely pubescent.[1][more]
Bougainvillea () is a genus of flowering plants native to South America from Brazil west to Peru and south to southern Argentina (Chubut Province). Different authors accept between four and 18 species in the genus. The plant was first described by Philibert Commer?on, a French botanist accompanying French Navy admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his voyage of circumnavigation, and first published for him by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789. It is possible that the plants were first discovered by Jeanne Bar?, Commer?on's lover and assistant whom he snuck on board (despite regulations) disguised as a man (and who thus became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe). [more]
Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella (, Hispania Baetica, AD 4 - ca. AD 70) was a Roman writer. After a career in the army (he was tribune in Syria in 35), he took up farming. His De Re Rustica in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms our most important source on Roman agriculture, together with the works of Cato the Elder and Varro, both of which he occasionally cites. A smaller book on trees (De Arboribus) has been preserved as well. [more]
Commicarpus
Herbs orshrubs,perennial, suffrutescent, glabrous or glabrate [pubescent], from stout, ± woody taproots. Stemsdecumbent to erect, often reclining on or clambering in other vegetation, unarmed, without glutinousbands on internodes. Leavespetiolate, thin, subequal in each pair, base ± symmetric.Inflorescencesterminal and axillary, pedunculate, umbellate [capitate, verticellate]; bractsdeciduous, 1 at base of each pedicel, distinct, narrowly lanceolate [ovate], thinly herbaceous.Flowersbisexual, chasmogamous; perianth radially symmetric, short funnelform or campanulate, constricted beyond ovary, tube flared to 5-lobed limb; stamens 2(-3) [-6], exserted; styles exserted beyond anthers; stigmaspeltate.Fruitsclavate, sometimes slightly curved, finely 10-striate or -ribbed, stiffly coriaceous, glabrous or minutely puberulent,
with largestalked or subsessile, very sticky glands, especially near apex.[2][more]
Herbs,perennial, glabrousorpubescent, from stout, ± woody taproots. Stemserect to reclining, often clambering through other vegetation, unarmed, with glutinousbands on internodes. Leavessubsessile to long petiolate, unequal in size in each pair; blade thin or thick and slightly fleshy, base ± asymmetric.Inflorescencesterminal and axillary, pedunculate, racemose; bractsdeciduous, 1 at base of each pedicel, distinct, lanceolate, thin, translucent.Flowersbisexual, chasmogamous and/or cleistogamous; perianth of cleistogamous flowers forming low dome atop basalportion; perianth of chasmogamous flowers slightly bilaterally symmetric, funnelform, strongly oblique, constricted beyond ovary, tube flared, limbs 5-lobed; stamens 5 (fewer in cleistogamous flowers), exserted; styles exserted beyond anthers; stigmascapitate.Fruitsclavate, ± gibbousabaxially,
often gently incurvedadaxially, stiffly coriaceous; ribs 10, not well defined, with or without interruptedridges or tubercules, glabrous.[3][more]
Herbs,perennial, viscid-pubescent, from tuberous taproots. Stemserect to spreading, unarmed, without glutinousbands on internodes. Leaves long petiolate, unequal in each pair, thick and fleshy, base ± asymmetric.Inflorescencesaxillary and terminal, long pedunculate, capitate; bracts 6-20, forming involucre, subtendingcluster of more than 3 flowers; outer bracts ovateorlanceolate, apexacuminate or narrowly acute; inner bracts persistent, not accrescent, distinct, narrower than outer, herbaceous.Flowersbisexual, chasmogamous and/or cleistogamous; cleistogamous perianthsmall green dome atop developing turbinate base; chasmogamous perianth radially symmetric, orange-red, or allyellow, funnelform, constricted beyond ovary, abruptly expanded to 5-lobed limb; stamens 5-8, slightly exserted; styles exserted slightly beyond stamens; stigmascapitate.Fruits radially symmetric, turbinate, constricted beyond base, apex umbonate, stiffly coriaceous; ribs 10 low, rounded, each swollen at junction of distal, umbonate portion,
glabrous, smooth, without glands.[4][more]
Herbs annualorperennial, erect, ascending, or prostrate, sometimes with tuberous roots. Stemsviscidglandularpubescent or glabrescent. Leaves opposite.Inflorescencesaxillary, in 1-3-flowered cymes, sometimes panicles, or rarely 1-flowered, enclosed within a campanulateinvolucre; involucre lobes 5, reticulate-venose, enlarged and membranous after flowering. Flowersbisexual, inconspicuous, opening in morning; pedicel 20-25 mm.Perianthconstricted beyond theovary, 0.6-0.8(-1) cm, limb rose-red or light red-purple, plicate, campanulate or short funnelform, often oblique, ca. 0.8 cm in diam., deciduous.Stamens (2-) 3(-5) ; filamentscapillary, circinately incurved, jointed at the ovary
base.Stylefiliform; stigmacapitate.Fruitoblong, fusiform, obovoid, or terete, small, smooth or tuberculate, without sticky glands.Seed: embryocurved, cotyledons enclosing the endosperm, radicleelongated.[5][more]
Pisonia is a genus of plants. Some species, for example Pisonia brunoniana of New Zealand, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island and Hawaii, Pisonia umbellifera, and possibly Pisonia grandis widespread in the tropical Indo-Pacific region, are referred to as Birdcatcher or Catchbird trees because their sticky seeds trap small songbirds. [more]
Acleisanthes is a genus of flowering plants in the Bougainvillea family, Nyctaginaceae. There are currently 16 species. The generic name is derived from the Greek words a??e??t?? (akleistos), meaning "not closed," and a???? (anthos), meaning "flower." Plants of this genus are known commonly as trumpets due to the elongated, open-ended shape of their flowers. These are arid-adapted perennials with thick taproots which are usually compact and low to the ground or slightly ascending. An individual plant may have cleistogamous (unopening and self-pollinating) flowers as well as opening flowers which are usually nocturnal as a water-saving adaptation and are pollinated by night-flying or crepuscular insects such as hawkmoths. Flowers are usually white, sometimes yellow. These plants are native to the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts of Mexico and the United States. [more]
Herbs,annual, viscidpubescent to nearly glabrous, from slender or stout and ± woody taproots. Stemsdecumbent to semierect, unarmed, without glutinousbands on internodes. Leavespetiolate, unequal in size in each pair; blade ± thick and succulent, base usually asymmetric.Inflorescencesaxillary, pedunculate, capitateclusters; receptacle flat to somewhat rounded-conic, with short, pedicel-like projections; flowers maturing from one side of inflorescence to other; bractspersistent, not accrescent, 5-10, distinct, thin and translucent, forming an involucre, linear-lanceolate to ovate, broad. Flowersbisexual, chasmogamous; perianth radially symmetric, funnelform or salverform, constricted beyond ovary, abruptly expanded to 4-5-lobed limb; stamens (3-) 4-5, included; styles included; stigmaslinear.Fruitsfusiform, indurate throughout, or spongy on exterior, minutely puberulent or glabrous; wings 2-4, translucent, prominently veined, scarious, extending beyond apex and/or base of body; sulcismooth or coarsely rugose.[6][more]
