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3 Creeping or short subshrubs, the stems primarily prostrate, < 2 dm tall. | |
4 Well-developed leaves 4-6 per stem; inflorescence a head subtended by 4 large white bracts | |
4 Well-developed leaves many per stem; inflorescence of individual flowers axillary in pairs or clusters or in terminal cymes. | |
8 Upright shrubs, unarmed. | |
9 Inflorescence a terminal head of many flowers. | |
10 Head flattened, either subtended by 4 large white bracts or by an involucre with >5 green phyllaries. | |
11 Head subtended by an involucre of >5 green phyllaries; leaves with venation otherwise; flowers 5-merous | |
9 Inflorescence otherwise, either of a solitary flower, or one of a wide variety of inflorescences with flowers attached at different points along branched or unbranched axes (e.g. axillary). {add: [Lagerstroemia] LYTHRACEAE; [Rosmarinus] LAMIACEAE; [Laguncularia] COMBRETACEAE; [Buxus] BUXACEAE; [Exochorda] ROSACEAE; various other [see spreadsheet]} | |
12 Inflorescence either terminal and not flat-topped (longer than wide), or axillary and variously shaped, or terminal and solitary, or leaf-opposed. | |
15 Carpels many (> 9), either separate or fused; stamens many; perianth segments either many and undifferentiated into calyx and corolla, maroon, brown, or yellow (in CALYCANTHACEAE), or differentiated into a fleshy and persistent calyx of 5-9 sepals, and a deciduous corolla of 5-9 red (or white) petals (Punica in LYTHRACEAE). | |
16 Fruit a leathery, 4-15 cm in diameter, reddish, spherical berry with obpyramidal seeds surrounded by a juicy sarcotesta (pomegranate); perianth differentiated, the sepals fleshy and persistent on the fruit, the petals deciduous, 5-9, bright red to white; ovary inferior; branches typically armed with axillary spines | |
15 Carpels 1-5, fused; stamens either 1-5 or 8-10; perianth segments 4-5 or 8, variously colored; fruit a simple capsule, drupe, or berry (including berry-like fruit); flowers 2-many, in axillary or terminal inflorescences (pistillate flowers sometimes solitary in SANTALACEAE and THESIACEAE); [Eudicots]. | |
21 Stamens 8-10, of 2 different lengths in each flower; petals separate, 4-5 (-7), pink purple, 10-15 mm long; stems strongly arching, rooting at the tips; [plants of flooded to saturated wetlands] | |
23 Fruit a loculicidal capsule, dehiscing into 3 valves; branches square in ×-section; leaves < 2 cm long; [exotic, cultivated and weakly established, of temperate areas] | |
23 Fruit a drupe with 2-4 pyrenes; branches round or nearly so in ×-section; leaves > 2 cm long; [natives, of peninsular FL] | |
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1 Leaves deciduous (medium to pale green, thin in texture); leaves strictly opposite. | |
3 Flowers white to yellow; capsules linear, >10× as long as wide; leaf undersurface with curly simple hairs; nectar glands present in the main vein axils on the undersurface of the leaf (visible from the underside or the upperside in fresh leaves and herbarium specimens as a triangle 1-4 mm on a side) | |
5 Leaves 4-20 cm long, 2.5-12 cm wide; petals connate into a 15-25 mm long tube, either greenish-yellow and mottled with purple; some calyx lobes expanding to 7 cm long and 5 cm wide, petaloid (pink to yellowish); capsule 2-valved; [native, in saturated, boggy seepages and streamheads, se. SC to FL] | |
5 Leaves 2.5-7 cm long, 1.5-4 cm wide; petals separate, clawed, 12-20 mm long (including the 6-9 mm long claw), white, pink, or purple; calyx remaining small and sepaloid (3.5-5 mm long); capsule 4-6-valved; [introduced, persistent from planting in upland to moist situations] | |
1 Leaves evergreen (dark green or gray-green, thick in texture); leaves opposite or subopposite (offset by < 2mm from the opposing leaf). | |
6 Mangroves, with one of various adaptations to growing in tidal or near-tidal, saline situations: prominent salt-excreting glands on the petiole (Laguncularia in COMBRETACEAE), or prop roots (Rhizophora in RHIZOPHORACEAE), or abundant pneumatophores (Avicennia in ACANTHACEAE); [FL and less commonly subtropical shores of other, especially Gulf Coast, southeastern states]. | |
8 Plants with numerous pneumatophores ascending from the roots and terminating in a blunt tip; leaves gray on the undersurface | |
8 Plants with prominent prop-roots descending to the ground from the trunk and branches; leaves light green on the undersurface | |
6 Non-mangroves; [collectively widespread]. | |
9 Secondary leaf veins relatively few, further branching and reticulating into the tertiary vein structure; [collectively widespread]. | |
11 Twigs with spines; leaf venation with 3 primary veins from near the blade base; fruit a spherical berry, 5-12 cm long | |
9 Secondary leaf veins very many, closely parallel to one another and extending unbranched to the leaf margin. | |