Family Martyniaceae
Description: Annual or perennial herbs, often with tuberous roots; covered with sticky glandular hairs.
Leaves alternate or opposite, large, margins entire to toothed or sometimes lobed, petioles long; stipules absent.
Inflorescences axillary and/or terminal racemes, often 1 or 2 bracteoles at the pedicel base. Flowers zygomorphic, bisexual, 5-merous. Sepals 5, free, or fused into a 5-lobed cup split on the lower side. Corolla tubular, narrow-cylindrical at base and expanding towards apex, 5-lobed and often 2-lipped. Stamens epipetalous; either with 4 fertile stamens in pairs of unequal length with the fifth one a staminode, or, 2 fertile with 2 or 3 staminodes. Ovary superior, carpels 2, 1-locular; ovules few–many; style slender, terminated by 2 stigmatic flaps.
Fruit a woody capsule with a caducous ± fleshy outer surface, dehiscing longitudinally so that the opened fruit bears 2 curved horns; seeds few–many, oblong, compressed, black.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 5 genera, 16 species, tropical & subtropical America & adjacent temperate regions. Australia: 3 genera, 4 species, all mainland States except N.T.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Martyniaceae, Order: Lamiales)
Wikipedia Sometimes included in the family Pedaliaceae, but differing in the subdivision of the ovary and placentation.
Text by A. K. Brooks
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the genera | |
| 1 | Sepals fused into 5-lobed calyx | Proboscidea |
| Sepals 5, free | 2 |
| 2 | Fertile stamens 4; capsule prickly, horns as long as or longer than the body | Ibicella |
| Fertile stamens 2; capsule not prickly, horns shorter than the body
Back to 1 | Martynia |
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