Edit History
DISTICHOCALYX Benth. [family ACANTHACEAE]
Date Updated: 19 August 2007
Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical Africa, page 1, (1900) Author: (By I. H. Burkill and C. B. Clarke.)
Names
DISTICHOCALYX Benth. [family ACANTHACEAE], in Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 1080.
Information
Calyx anticous 2 segments free to the base, posticous 3 united more than 3/4 their length (only 1/3 their length in D. thunbergiiflorus). Corolla large or medium; tube inflated in upper half; lobes 5, subequal, round, contorted in bud. Stamens 4; filaments nearly glabrous, gland-bearing near the top; anthers all alike, not spurred; pollen globose, echinate. Style nearly glabrous, 1 stigmatic branch large spathulate, the other obsolete; ovary narrowly oblong, glabrous, with at least 4 (usually 6–8) ovules in each cell. Capsule linear-cylindric, small, slender, many-seeded (usually perfecting 10–14 seeds where known) from the base; but in D. thunbergiiflorus (though similarly constructed) much larger. Seeds having the faces glabrous, the margins with many white hygroscopic hairs. —Small shrubs, bearing cystoliths everywhere, sparingly hairy (D. hirsuta moderately hairy). Leaves petioled, entire. Flowers purple-blue or white, 3–16 in a terminal spike or head, elongated and loose in R. thunbergiiflorus; bract close to the calyx, ovate or elliptic, about as long as the calyx; bracteoles very small, oblong.
Range
Species 8, endemic in Tropical Africa.
Notes
T. Anderson founded in MS. his genus Dischistocalyx in herb. Kew on six of the species below; he diagnosed the genus from Ruellia entirely by the calyx, and therefore he described as Ruellia thunbergiiflora the eighth species below, as it has the calyx divided for 2/3 its. length, often irregularly or sometimes subequally 5-partite nearly to the base. Bentham published the genus as Distichocalyx (in Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 1080), making an error in the name and widening the calyx-character to include Ruellia thunbergiiflora. Dischistocalyx Lindau (in Engl. & Prantl, Pflanzenf. iv. 3B. 307) does not contain any one of the 7 species included by Bentham; it has equal calyx-segments, and is stated to have 10 or 12 seeds in each cell, but the two species which Lindau really possessed, viz. his Dischistocalyx laxiflorus, and D. confertiflorus, have only 2 ovules to each cell of the ovary, and are closely congeneric with Pseudostenosiphonium rhamnifolium, Lindau. The first six species of Distichocalyx below described are so intimately allied that the essential part of the description of all is included in the above generic description; it is remarkable that Bentham should have brought Ruellia thunbergiiflora here in the teeth of T. Anderson's generic characters (which make it a Ruellia); his instinct has been confirmed by the discovery that this species has the pollen of Distichocalyx —not of Ruellia .
Date Updated: 19 August 2007
Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical Africa, page 1, (1900) Author: (By I. H. Burkill and C. B. Clarke.)
Names
DISTICHOCALYX Benth. [family ACANTHACEAE], in Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 1080.
Information
Calyx anticous 2 segments free to the base, posticous 3 united more than 3/4 their length (only 1/3 their length in D. thunbergiiflorus). Corolla large or medium; tube inflated in upper half; lobes 5, subequal, round, contorted in bud. Stamens 4; filaments nearly glabrous, gland-bearing near the top; anthers all alike, not spurred; pollen globose, echinate. Style nearly glabrous, 1 stigmatic branch large spathulate, the other obsolete; ovary narrowly oblong, glabrous, with at least 4 (usually 6–8) ovules in each cell. Capsule linear-cylindric, small, slender, many-seeded (usually perfecting 10–14 seeds where known) from the base; but in D. thunbergiiflorus (though similarly constructed) much larger. Seeds having the faces glabrous, the margins with many white hygroscopic hairs. —Small shrubs, bearing cystoliths everywhere, sparingly hairy (D. hirsuta moderately hairy). Leaves petioled, entire. Flowers purple-blue or white, 3–16 in a terminal spike or head, elongated and loose in R. thunbergiiflorus; bract close to the calyx, ovate or elliptic, about as long as the calyx; bracteoles very small, oblong.
Range
Species 8, endemic in Tropical Africa.
Notes
T. Anderson founded in MS. his genus Dischistocalyx in herb. Kew on six of the species below; he diagnosed the genus from Ruellia entirely by the calyx, and therefore he described as Ruellia thunbergiiflora the eighth species below, as it has the calyx divided for 2/3 its. length, often irregularly or sometimes subequally 5-partite nearly to the base. Bentham published the genus as Distichocalyx (in Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 1080), making an error in the name and widening the calyx-character to include Ruellia thunbergiiflora. Dischistocalyx Lindau (in Engl. & Prantl, Pflanzenf. iv. 3B. 307) does not contain any one of the 7 species included by Bentham; it has equal calyx-segments, and is stated to have 10 or 12 seeds in each cell, but the two species which Lindau really possessed, viz. his Dischistocalyx laxiflorus, and D. confertiflorus, have only 2 ovules to each cell of the ovary, and are closely congeneric with Pseudostenosiphonium rhamnifolium, Lindau. The first six species of Distichocalyx below described are so intimately allied that the essential part of the description of all is included in the above generic description; it is remarkable that Bentham should have brought Ruellia thunbergiiflora here in the teeth of T. Anderson's generic characters (which make it a Ruellia); his instinct has been confirmed by the discovery that this species has the pollen of Distichocalyx —not of Ruellia .
Date Updated: 19 August 2007
Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical Africa, page 1, (1900) Author: (By I. H. Burkill and C. B. Clarke.)
Names
DISTICHOCALYX Benth. [family ACANTHACEAE], in Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 1080.
Information
Calyx anticous 2 segments free to the base, posticous 3 united more than 3/4 their length (only 1/3 their length in D. thunbergiiflorus). Corolla large or medium; tube inflated in upper half; lobes 5, subequal, round, contorted in bud. Stamens 4; filaments nearly glabrous, gland-bearing near the top; anthers all alike, not spurred; pollen globose, echinate. Style nearly glabrous, 1 stigmatic branch large spathulate, the other obsolete; ovary narrowly oblong, glabrous, with at least 4 (usually 6–8) ovules in each cell. Capsule linear-cylindric, small, slender, many-seeded (usually perfecting 10–14 seeds where known) from the base; but in D. thunbergiiflorus (though similarly constructed) much larger. Seeds having the faces glabrous, the margins with many white hygroscopic hairs. —Small shrubs, bearing cystoliths everywhere, sparingly hairy (D. hirsuta moderately hairy). Leaves petioled, entire. Flowers purple-blue or white, 3–16 in a terminal spike or head, elongated and loose in R. thunbergiiflorus; bract close to the calyx, ovate or elliptic, about as long as the calyx; bracteoles very small, oblong.
Range
Species 8, endemic in Tropical Africa.
Notes
T. Anderson founded in MS. his genus Dischistocalyx in herb. Kew on six of the species below; he diagnosed the genus from Ruellia entirely by the calyx, and therefore he described as Ruellia thunbergiiflora the eighth species below, as it has the calyx divided for 2/3 its. length, often irregularly or sometimes subequally 5-partite nearly to the base. Bentham published the genus as Distichocalyx (in Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 1080), making an error in the name and widening the calyx-character to include Ruellia thunbergiiflora. Dischistocalyx Lindau (in Engl. & Prantl, Pflanzenf. iv. 3B. 307) does not contain any one of the 7 species included by Bentham; it has equal calyx-segments, and is stated to have 10 or 12 seeds in each cell, but the two species which Lindau really possessed, viz. his Dischistocalyx laxiflorus, and D. confertiflorus, have only 2 ovules to each cell of the ovary, and are closely congeneric with Pseudostenosiphonium rhamnifolium, Lindau. The first six species of Distichocalyx below described are so intimately allied that the essential part of the description of all is included in the above generic description; it is remarkable that Bentham should have brought Ruellia thunbergiiflora here in the teeth of T. Anderson's generic characters (which make it a Ruellia); his instinct has been confirmed by the discovery that this species has the pollen of Distichocalyx —not of Ruellia .
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