Synonyms: Adrastaea APNI*
Description: Small to large shrubs or climbers, often forming mats.
Leaves usually sessile or subsessile, leaves on short axillary shoots often clustered and smaller than leaves on main stems; stipules minute or absent.
Flowers solitary and terminal or apparently axillary, pedunculate or sessile in a whorl of floral leaves and bracts. Sepals 5, glabrous or hairy; the 2 'outer' sepals marginally overlap the 3 'inner' ones. Petals 5, yellow. Stamens few or numerous, surrounding carpels and usually arranged in ± 3 groups or sometimes all on one side of the carpels, occasionally some reduced to staminodes; anthers erect, generally oblong, dehiscing by longitudinal slits or [terminal pores]. Carpels usually 2–5, free or nearly so; ovules usually 2–6 in each carpel; styles filiform.
Fruit a follicle dehiscent at the top; seeds reniform or globose, aril present.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 115 species, Australia, Madagascar, Pacific islands. Australia: c. 110 species, all States.
This genus is under revision. Intermediates occur between some taxa and these complicate the delineation and identification of certain species.
Text by G. J. Harden & J. Everett
Taxon concept:
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