Asclepiadaceae

Abstract

Shrubs, woody or herbaceous left-twining climbers, perennials with deciduous herbaceous aboveground parts or stem succulents, with watery or milky sap; L decussate, rarely whorled, simple and entire (rarely lobed or divided), sometimes much-reduced, absent or spinescent (in stem succulents); Inf cymose (terminal thyrses), rarely racemose; Fl actinomorphic, bisexual; Sep 5, basally connate; Pet 5, usually connate; Cl occasionally forming outgrowths on the upper face (→ petaloid corona. Fig. 1A); St 5, alternating with the Pet; Fil free, basally fused with the Cl, Anth coherent (→ Periplocoideae) or all St postgenitally fused with the Sty head into a column (= gynostegium, Gy) (→ Secamonoideae, Asclepiadoideae); Gy mostly with a simple (staminal) or double (staminal plus interstaminal) corona (Cn, Fig. 2A); Anth 4-locular (→ Periplocoideae, Secamonoideae) or 2-locular (→ Asclepiadoideae), pollen in tetrads and freely pre­sented on pollen-carriers (translators. Fig. 1B) (→ Periplocoideae) or pollen grains of each pollen sac coherent into a pollinium (Poll) and adjacent Poll united into a pollinarium by means of a translator (→ Secamonoideae, Asclepiadoideae) (Fig. 2B); gynoeceum of 2 apically connate Ca, which are united by means of the 5-angular Sty head; Fr paired or single follicles, with few to many Se, not fleshy, slender to inflated; Se usually flattened, with or without wing, with a terminal silky tuft of Ha (coma).