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Key to Lythraceae

Lythraceae

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1 Plant woody or suffrutescent, a shrub or a small tree 1-10 m tall; petals present, showy, 8-20 mm long.
  2 Aquatic shrubs with arching suffrutescent or woody stems; leaves opposite or whorled; [native]
  2 Terrestrial shrubs or small trees with erect woody stems; leaves alternate to subopposite; [exotics cultivated and sometimes persistent].
    3 Stems unarmed; flowers in many-flowered terminal or axillary cymose panicles; fruit a loculicidal capsule, the seeds unilaterally winged (wings growing from one side)
    3 Stems often armed with thorns; flowers solitary or several in terminal or axillary clusters; fruit a leathery berry (pomegranate), the seeds with a fleshy outer layer and hardened inner layer, but not unilaterally winged
1 Plant not woody, an herb 0.1-1.2 m tall; petals absent or present, inconspicuous or showy, 1-10 mm long.
      4 Fruit with 2-4 prominent spines; leaves coarsely toothed
      4 Fruit not spinose; leaves entire.
          6 Floral tube (hypanthium) swollen obliquely at its base; capsule dehiscing longitudinally along the upper surface
               8 Flowers or fruits (1-) 3-10 in the leaf axils (at least some axils with 2 or more flowers or fruits on a given plant)
               8 Flowers or fruits solitary in the leaf axils (never > 1 per axil).
                 9 Capsule indehiscent; petals 0; sepals 4, broadly triangular, lacking intersepalary appendages; seeds spatulate or oblanceolate, about 1 mm long, minutely granular on one face and smooth on the other
                 9 Capsule dehiscing septicidally; petals 0 or 4; sepals 4 (-6), triangular, with intersepalary appendages of size about equal to the calyx lobes; seeds hemispheric, about 0.3 mm long, the surface very finely reticulate