Botanical Survey of India | Flora of India

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ZYGOPHYLLACEAE
Paramjit Singh and V. Singh



Annual or perennial herbs, shrubs or rarely trees; branches usually articulate or swollen at nodes. Leaves opposite or alternate (by suppression) or fasciculate, pinnate, rarely simple, entire, petiolate to subsessile; stipules free, foliaceous, sometimes fleshy or spinescent, rarely deciduous. Flowers solitary or in cymes, usually bisexual, regular or rarely irregular, hypogynous. Sepals usually 5, free or rarely connate at base, imbricate or valvate. Petals usually 5, free, often clawed, imbricate or convolute, rarely absent. Disk convex or concave, rarely annular or indistinct. Stamens in 1 - 3 whorls of 5 each, free, outermost whorl usually opposite petals and occasionally adnate at base; filaments appendaged at base or naked; anthers nearly basifixed to versatile, longitudinally dehiscent, introrse. Ovary sessile or rarely shortly stipitate, angled or winged, (2-) 6 - 10(-12)-locular; placentation axile; style simple, angular or furrowed, rarely 5 and free; stigma simple, capitate or lobed. Fruits capsular or schizocarpic, rarely drupa-ceous or baccate; seeds 1-many in each locule; endosperm present or absent; cotyledons flat.

Widely distributed, but mainly in tropical and warm regions of both hemispheres With 26 genera and ca 250 species; 8 genera, 18 species and 4 varieties in India. One species viz. Quaicum officinale L., a native of America, is cultivated as an ornamental.



KEY TO THE GENERA


1a. Flowers solitary; fruits capsular or achizocarpic 2
b. Flowers in cymes; fruits drupaceous 3
2a. Stipules not spiny 4
b. Stipules spiny 2. Fagonia
3a. Leaves bifoliolate; stamens 10 1. Balanites
b. Leaves simple; stamens 15 4. Nitraria
4a. Petals present; stamens 10 - 15 5
b. Petals absent; stamens 5 6. Seetzenia
5a. Leaves simple; fruits capsular 6
b. Leaves compound; fruits schizocarpic 7
6a. Leaves opposite, entire 8. Zygophyllum
b. Leaves alternate, irregularly dissected 5. Peganum
7a. Intrastaminal glands present; fruits splitting into 4 - 5 mericarps 7. Tribulus
b. Intrutaminal gland. absent; fruits splitting into 10 - 12 mericarps 3. Kallstroemia


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