Publication Date:
2024-01-12
Description:
Erect tall annual, usually branched. Leaves simple, with 2 free stipules, in the lower part of the stem opposite, in the higher part spirally arranged, long-petioled, palmate, 3\xe2\x80\x9411-foliolate. Flowers (\xe2\x99\x82) (\xe2\x99\x80) or mostly (\xe2\x99\x82\xe2\x99\x80). Male flowers in short, dense cymes, which are united into lax, foliate, terminal panicles, very shortly pedicelled. Tepals 5, free, oblong, membranous, imbricate. Stamens 5, epitepalous; filaments erect and short in bud, linear, with a narrowed apex; anthers comparatively large, basifixed, 2-celled, cells opening longitudinally, rudimentary ovary absent. Female flowers solitary in the axil of a small, primary, membranous, entire bract closely enveloping the ovary, each enveloped by a spathaceous, conspicuous, acuminate, secondary bract. Perianth absent. Ovary sessile, 1-celled; style central; stigmas 2, sessile, long, filiform, caducous. Ovule solitary, pendulous. Achene closely enveloped by the much enlarged, secondary bract, broadly oval, with a concave rimmed base, much compressed, faintly keeled on the lateral margins; pericarp smooth, hard, crustaceous, easily splitting into two halves; albumen unilateral, scanty, fleshy; embryo large, horseshoe-shaped; cotyledons large; radicle long.\nDistr. Monotypic, native of Central Asia, cultivated in tropical Asia, naturalized in N. America.
Repository Name:
National Museum of Natural History, Netherlands
Type:
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Format:
application/pdf
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