Family Goodeniaceae
Synonyms: Brunoniaceae APNI*
Description: Herbs or shrubs.
Leaves mostly alternate, simple, margins entire, toothed or variously lobed, often with a tuft of villous hairs in axil.
Inflorescence terminal or axillary, dichasia, thyrses, racemes, subumbels, spikes or heads or flowers solitary. Flowers zygomorphic or rarely almost actinomorphic, bisexual, mostly 5-merous. Sepals 5 or 3, free or fused. Corolla yellow, white, pink, mauve [blue or brownish red], with 5 fused petals, with the tube slit on lower side, usually (except in Scaevola and Selliera) ± 2-lipped, often with auricles enclosing stamens. Stamens 5, epigynous or rarely almost hypogynous; anthers free or fused around style, 2-locular; dehiscence by longitudinal slits into the anther cylinder, so that the cylinder is filled with pollen before the style grows up. Ovary inferior to superior, 2-locular but usually incompletely so [or rarely 4-locular] or apparently 1-locular, with axile or basal placentas; ovules 1–several per loculus; style surmounted by a pollen cup or indusium which collects and exposes the pollen; stigma growing from centre of indusium.
Fruit a capsule, inferior nut or drupaceous; seeds 1–several, caruncle present or absent.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 13 genera, c. 390 species, chiefly temperate and mostly confined to Southern Hemisphere. Australia: 13 genera, c. 370 species, all States but particularly SW W.A.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Goodeniaceae, Order: Asterales)
Wikipedia
Text by R. C. Carolin
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the genera | |
| 1 | Flowers in solitary heads on naked scapes; corolla almost actinomorphic | Brunonia |
| Flowers not in heads, if scapose then loose with prominent bracts; corolla strongly zygomorphic | 2 |
| 2 | Anthers fused to each other | 3 |
| Anthers free from each other
Back to 1 | 4 |
| 3 | Flowers glabrous | Lechenaultia |
| Flowers hairy
Back to 2 | Dampiera |
| 4 | Flowers in dichasia in axils of basal leaves; stamens almost hypogynous; ovary almost superior | Velleia |
| Flowers in terminal thyrses, racemes or spikes or rarely solitary in axils of basal leaves; stamens epigynous; ovary inferior or half-inferior
Back to 2 | 5 |
| 5 | Corolla yellow, sometimes with brownish markings | Goodenia |
| Corolla blue to pinkish or white to cream, rarely greenish
Back to 4 | 6 |
| 6 | Corolla lobes unequal, not spreading like a fan | Coopernookia |
| Corolla lobes almost equal, spreading like a fan or, in Selliera held stiffly erect
Back to 5 | 7 |
| 7 | Corolla with prominent spur | Goodenia |
| Corolla without prominent spur
Back to 6 | 8 |
| 8 | Corolla lobes spreading like a fan, wings conspicuous; not in salt marshes | Scaevola |
| Corolla lobes held stiffly erect, wings obsolete; creeping glabrous plant of salt marshes
Back to 7 | Selliera |
|
