Family CRASSULACEAE
Description: Herbs or small shrubs, usually with succulent leaves and stems, chiefly annual.
Leaves usually simple, opposite or occasionally alternate; stipules absent. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, mostly 4- or 5-merous (range 3–12).
Inflorescences terminal, of several dichasia or rarely flowers solitary. Sepals usually 4 or 5, free or fused, persistent. Petals as many as sepals, free or fused, persistent. Stamens equal to or twice as many as petals, in 1 or rarely 2 whorls, hypogynous or slightly perigynous; anthers 2-locular, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, carpels as many as and opposite the petals, ± free or fused at base; ovules 1–many.
Fruits often a star-shaped cluster of follicles.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 30 genera, 900 species, cosmopolitan. Australia: 4 genera, c. 19 species, all States.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Crassulaceae, Order: Saxifragales)
Wikipedia
Text by J. Everett & E. H. Norris
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the genera | |
| 1 | Stamens as many as petals | Crassula |
| Stamens twice as many as petals | 2 |
| 2 | Petals free or fused only at base; leaves alternate | Sedum |
| Petals fused into a tube for half their length; leaves opposite
Back to 1 | 3 |
| 3 | Flowers 5-merous | Cotyledon |
| Flowers 4-merous
Back to 2 | 4 |
| 4 | Flowers erect or spreading; filaments fused to corolla tube at or above middle | Kalanchoe |
| Flowers pendent; filaments fused to corolla tube in lower third
Back to 3 | Bryophyllum |
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