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1 Leaves opposite and decussate; flowers in spikes or racemes. | |
2 Mangrove, a tree or erect shrub, often with pneumatophores; petiole with 2 glands near blade junction; petals ca. 1 mm long, greenish white; leaf blades with glands in sunken pits, several mm in from the leaf margin | |
1 Leaves alternate; flowers either in heads (arrayed in axillary or terminal panicles or racemes) or in spikes. | |
3 Trees or shrubs, either with or without pneumatophores; flowers in axillary spikes. | |
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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. | |