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Calandrinia macrocalix

Interesting Facts

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Description

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Family Portulacaceae

Herbs annual or perennial , rarely ± shrubby, usually succulent, usually glabrous except for nodal hairs and/or scales . Leaves alternate or opposite; true stipules absent, nodes sometimes with axillary scales and/or hairs; petiole usually poorly defined or absent; leaf blade simple , usually fleshy , margin entire. Inflorescences usually terminal , less often axillary , in cymes or racemelike panicles, forming heads of sessile flowers surrounded by an involucre of leaves, or reduced to solitary flowers. Bracts inconspicuous. Flowers bisexual , very rarely unisexual , actinomorphic . Sepals 2, free or basally connate , herbaceous or scarious . Petals 4-6 or seldom more, distinct or basally connate, imbricate, often brightly colored , usually short lived. Disk usually absent. Stamens 4-100, free, fascicled, or adnate to petals; filaments linear ; anthers 2-loculed, introrse , dehiscence longitudinal . Ovary superior or half-inferior, 1-loculed, 2-5-carpellate; ovules 1 to many, campylotropous; placentation basal or free-central . Style linear; stigma 2-9-lobed. Fruit a thin-walled capsule, circumscissile or 2- or 3-valved, rarely a nut, often globose or subglobose, smooth . Seeds many, reniform or globose, caruncle present or not; endosperm mostly copious , surrounded by embryo.

About 19 genera and 500 species: mainly in more arid regions of S hemisphere, especially Africa, South America, and Australia, fewer species in Asia, Europe, and North America; two genera (one introduced ) and six species (two endemic, two introduced) in China.[1]

Genus Calandrinia

Herbs, annual , not rhizomatous or stoloniferous . Stems prostrate to erect , branched; nodes glabrous . Leaves alternate, not articulate at base , somewhat to markedly clasping , attachment points linear ; blade linear to oblanceolate , or ovate to spatulate , flattened, glabrous or with elongate unicellular hairs . Inflorescences racemose, somewhat to markedly secund (at least distally), elongate, bracteate ; bracts leaflike. Flowers pedicellate ; sepals persistent in fruit, imbricate, green, distinctly angled or keeled , ovate, herbaceous, glabrous or with elongate, unicellular hairs; petals usually 5, red; stamens 3-15, usually opposite petals, not adnate to petals; ovules 6-many; style present; stigmas 3. Capsules 3-valved, longitudinally dehiscent from apex, valves not deciduous, reflexed after dehiscence, margins markedly involute ; endocarp and exocarp not separating. Seeds 10-20, black, ± ellipsoid , reticulate or tuberculate viewed at 30×, glabrous, estrophiolate. x = 12.

Species 14: temperate w Americas, with greater diversity in w South America.[2]

Taxonomy

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Notes

Publishing author : Hauman Publication : Anales Soc. Ci. Argent. 86: 253 1918

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Calandrinia

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 8 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

C. breweri (Brewer's Redmaids) · C. ciliata (Desert Rockpurslane) · C. grandiflora (Rock Purslane) · C. longiscapa (Calandrinia) · C. spectabilis (Rock Purslane) · C. umbellata (Red Maids) · C. umbellata 'Amaranth' (Red Maids) · C. umbellata 'Ruby Tuesday' (Redmaids)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Dequan Lu & Michael G. Gilbert "Portulacaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 5 Page 442. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  2. Walter A. Kelley "Calandrinia". in Flora of North America Vol. 4 Page 458, 459, 461. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
Last Revised: 7/29/2012