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

Family: Plumbaginaceae
Limonium

Citation: Miller, Gard. Dict. edn 4 (1754).

Derivation: Latinised name from the Greek name leimonion for various meadow-growing plants.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Statices, sea-lavenders.

Description:
Annuals or perennials, with one to several basal rosettes, rarely shrublets outside Australia, with each rosette with one to several erect inflorescences; leaves restricted to a basal rosette, with or without a petiole but usually tapering into a petiole-like base, lobed or entire.

Inflorescence an elongate to corymbose panicle, usually with scale-like bracts or rarely with leaf-like wings of the stems, with few-flowered spikelets borne on spike-like branches of usually secondary order; spikelets with 3 sterile bracts, 2 on the outside usually at least partly green and 1 between the spikelet and stem more or less membranous; sessile flowers each subtended by a membranous bract; calyx more or less completely fused into a funnel- or salver-shaped tube, petaloid, with a fringe spreading when fruiting, stiffly membranous to scarious with a more or less pronounced midrib; petals wedge-shaped to oblanceolate, fused into a short tube, collapsing after flowering; stamens opposite and fused to the petals.

Fruit usually an indehiscent cylindrical nut.

Distribution:  Almost cosmopolitan; about 300 species particularly common in the Mediterranean to central Asian regions. They are usually common in saline habitats along the coast but also occur inland.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:
1. Branches of the inflorescence winged
 
2. Leaves with hairs along the margin or glabrous; calyx tube with alternating triangular and bristle-like lobes
L. lobatum 3.
2. Leaves hairy; calyx tube with entire or almost entire margins
L. sinuatum 5.
1. Branches of the inflorescence not winged
 
3. Flowers 2-3 mm long; lower branches of the inflorescence sterile
L. myrianthum 4.
3. Flowers 5-7 mm long; all branches of the inflorescence with flowers
 
4. Midrib of the sepals not extending into rounded lobes; leaf apex acute, apiculate or rarely acuminate
L. binervosum 1.
4. Midrib of the sepals extending into pointed lobes; leaf apex rounded, obtuse to emarginate
 
5. Midrib of the sepals extending into the apex of the lobes; spikelets c. 2 mm apart and with 1 or 2 flowers
L. companyonis 2.
5. Midrib of the sepals extending half to two-thirds the length of the lobes; spikelets usually touching one another and with 2-5 flowers
L. hyblaeum 6.

Author: Not yet available


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