The Families of Flowering Plants
The Families of Flowering Plants | |
~ Paeoniaceae, Ranunculaceae
Habit and leaf form. Herbs. Perennial; rhizomatous (the rhizome short and thick, the stem unbranched, with only two or three leaves). Mesophytic. Leaves alternate; petiolate; non-sheathing; simple. Lamina dissected; palmatifid; palmately veined; cross-venulate; cordate. Leaves exstipulate. Lamina margins serrate, or dentate.
Stem anatomy. Primary vascular tissue in two or more rings of bundles (two rings). Medullary bundles present. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring (in the rhizome). Vessel end-walls scalariform, or reticulately perforated. Sieve-tube plastids S-type.
Reproductive type, pollination. Plants hermaphrodite.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers solitary; terminal; large; regular; partially acyclic. The androecium acyclic. Free hypanthium present. Hypogynous disk absent.
Perianth sepaline, or petaline, or of ‘tepals’ (usually described as having petaloid sepals and no corolla); 4; free; (if considered ‘of tepals’) petaloid; persistent. Calyx 4; polysepalous; persistent.
Androecium 350–500 (very numerous). Androecial members branched; maturing centrifugally; free of the perianth; free of one another; spiralled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 20–200 (very numerous); polystemonous; filantherous. Anthers tetrasporangiate. Pollen grains aperturate; 3 aperturate.
Gynoecium usually 2 carpelled (opposite the outer perianth members). The pistil 2 celled (below). Gynoecium apocarpous to syncarpous; semicarpous (the carpels united in the lower third); superior. Carpel 15–20 ovuled (‘many’). Placentation marginal. Ovary usually 2 locular (below). Ovules bitegmic; crassinucellate.
Fruit non-fleshy. The fruiting carpel dehiscent; a follicle (dehiscing along both dorsal and vental sutures). Seeds endospermic; winged (and compressed). Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2.
Physiology, biochemistry. Not cyanogenic. Alkaloids absent.
Geography, cytology. Holarctic. Temperate. Japan. N = 10.
Taxonomy. Subclass Dicotyledonae; Crassinucelli. Dahlgren’s Superorder Ranunculiflorae; Ranunculales. Cronquist’s Subclass Magnoliidae; Ranunculales. APG 3 core angiosperms; peripheral eudicot; Superorder Ranunculanae; Order Ranunculales (as a synonym of Ranunculaceae).
Species 1. Genera 1; only genus, Glaucidium.
Tamura 1972, Bot. Mag. Tokyo 85, 40–.
Illustrations. • Glaucidium (Chittenden).
This description is offered for casual browsing only. We strongly advise against extracting comparative information from it. This is much more easily achieved using the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting specified attributes, summaries of attributes within groups of taxa, geographical distribution, genera included in each family, classifications (Dahlgren; Dahlgren, Clifford, and Yeo; Cronquist; APG), and notes on the APG classification.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 25th November 2009. http://delta-intkey.com’.
