Salomonia Lour., nom. cons.

Herbs, annual, small, erect or ascending; stems angular. Leaves alternate, sessile or petiolate, entire, 3-nerved. Flowers sessile, small, crowded in terminal or axillary spikes, opposite or superposed, each in axil of an acute caducous bract, minutely bibracteolate at base. Sepals 5, subequal; inner 2 larger, persistent; 2 anterior ones shorter; segments pointing backwards, acute. Petals 3, connate at base into a tube and adnate to staminal tube, cleft above, violet; lower petal keeled, vaulted, subentire, longer than the outer ones without a crest. Stamens 4 - 5 or 6, monadelphous; filaments united in lower half, adnate to corolla-tube at base; anthers confluent in one rectangular mass, opening by terminal pore. Ovary 2-loculed; ovule 1 in each locule, pendulous; style incurved at apex, thickened upwards. Capsules laterally compressed, obcordate, thin-walled, transversely oval or subreniform, loculicidally dehiscing along the muriculate margins. Seeds orbicular, black, glabrous; strophiole very small, gelatinous or absent.

Tropical S., E. and S.E. Asia to Australia, Europe and N. Mexico; ca 12 species, 2 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves shortly petiolate, ovate, truncate or cordate at base, 8 - 25 x 5 - 18 mm; lower sepal equalling or smaller than other sepals; anthers 6; fruits transversely oval, muricate at lower margin; seeds estrophiolate

1. Salomonia cantoniensis

b. Leaves sessile, oblong-lanceolate, rounded or obtuse at base, 3 - 11 x 2 - 4 mm; lower sepals larger than other sepals; anthers 4; fruits obreniform, not muriculate at lower margin; seeds gelatinously strophiolate

2. Salomonia ciliata

List of Lower Taxa