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Electronic Flora of South Australia
Electronic Flora of South Australia
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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Malvaceae
Commersonia

Citation: Forster & Forster f., Char. Gen. Pl. 43 (1776).

Derivation: After the French naturalist Philibert Commerson, 1727-1773, who sailed with the Bougainville expedition in 1766 and died on Mauritius.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Densely stellately hairy evergreen shrubs (in S.Aust.) or trees; leaves with caducous brown stipules, toothed or lobed, with obscure pinnate venation, usually shortly petiolate.

Flowers bisexual, in few-flowered axillary cymes; bracts caducous; epicalyx 0; calyx petaloid, deeply 5-lobed; petals 5, usually shorter than the sepals, with the lower margins incurved to embrace the anthers and an upper flat ligulate portion; stamens 5, free, short, opposite the petals, extrorse; staminodes 5, 3-partite or 3-toothed with the middle lobe or tooth the largest; ovary sessile, 5-celled, with 2-6 ovules in each cell, almost glabrous at first but tuberculate; styles 5, adhering to form a column, free, very slender; stigma small, capitate.

Capsule usually pubescent, opening loculicidally in 5 valves; seeds 1 or 2 in each cell.

Distribution:  12 species, native to Australia and south-eastern Asia.

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: Sometimes misspelt Commerconia.

Author: Not yet available


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