Melhania Forsskal

Herbs, undershrubs or shrubs, softly stellate-tomentose. Leaves simple, alternate, crenate or serrate, tomentose, paler beneath; petiolate; stipules usually filiform, tomentose. Flowers yellow or rarely orange-yellow in 1 - 4-flowered axillary or terminal peduncled cymes. Involucral bracts 3, rarely 5, linear, ovate or cordate-reniform, usually tomentose, fleshy, accrescent, often recurved, larger than the sepals and persistent enclosing the fruits. Sepals 5, connate at base, acuminate or cuspidate, stellate-tomentose outside, glabrous inside. Petals 5, mebranous, yellow or orange yellow, broadly obovate, macrescent. Stamens 5, alternating with 5 ligulate staminodes, connate at base into a short tube. Ovary sessile, usually subglobose, sometimes oblong, tomentose, 5-loculed, ovules 1 - many in each locule; styles long with 5 stigmatic branches. Capsules subglobose, loculicidally 5-valved. Seeds usually 4, rarely 2, angled, tubercled, rarely smooth; endospermous; cotyledons plicate, biparted, radicle inferior.

Africa, Asia and Australia, ca 600 species; 7 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Involucral bracts linear-oblong

5. Melhania incana

b. Involucral bracts lanceolate, ovate-cordate or cordate-reniform

2

2a. Involucral bracts cordate-reniform, accrescent; seeds smooth

2. Melhania denhamii

b. Involucral bracts lanceolate, ovate-cordate. fleshy; seeds tubercled, rugose or mucricate

3

3a. Capsules subglobose

1. Melhania cannabina

b. Capsules not subglobose

4

4a. Cymes terminal; seeds 2 in each lacule of capsules

7. Melhania tomentosa

b. Cymes both terminal and axillary; seeds 4 or more in each locule of capsules

5

5a. Involucral bracts longer than the sepals

4. Melhania hamiltoniana

b. Involucral bracts shorter than or equal to the sepals

6

6a. Leaves broadly ovate-Ianceolate; flowers yellow

3. Melhania futteyporensis

b. Leaves narrowly lanceolate; flowers orange yellow

6. Melhania magnifolia

List of Lower Taxa