Family OXALIDACEAE
Description: Usually perennial herbs, occasionally shrubs; tuber or bulbs often present.
Leaves alternate, radical or cauline, petiolate, palmately or, less often pinnately-compound, often 3-foliolate, sometimes 1-foliolate, occasionally reduced to a phyllode, usually stipulate.
Inflorescence usually umbellate cymes or flowers solitary or sometimes in racemes. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, 5-merous. Sepals 5, free or united. Petals 5, free or shortly fused basally. Stamens usually 10, in 2 whorls, very rarely 15, the outer whorl opposite petals and sometimes fused basally. Carpels united, occasionally free; ovary 3–5-locular; ovules 1–many per loculus; styles 3–5, usually free.
Fruit a loculicidal capsule; seeds often with elastic, sculptured testa.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 6 genera, c. 950 species, widespread in warm-temp. to tropical regions, with greatest diversity in southern Africa and Central & South America. Australia: 1 genus, c. 20 species, all States.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Oxalidaceae, Order: Oxalidales)
Wikipedia
Text by B. J. Conn
Taxon concept:
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