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Key J4: shrubs and subshrubs with opposite simple leaves with entire margins
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https://fsus.ncbg.unc.edu/main.php?pg=show-key.php&keyid=40728
1 Plants terrestrial, autotrophic or hemiparasitic shrubs or subshrubs. | |
2 Leaves herbaceous or leathery (succulent in Borrichia), much wider than thick; [various habitats]. | |
4 Petals clawed, the bases noticeably thinned compared to the broader tips; fruit schizocarps, breaking into 2-3 nutlets or 1-seeded cocci; [in part, Aspicarpa and Galphimia] | |
5 Well-developed leaves 4-6 per stem; inflorescence a head subtended by 4 large white bracts | |
5 Well-developed leaves many per stem; inflorescence of individual flowers axillary in pairs or clusters or in terminal cymes. | |
9 Upright shrubs, unarmed. | |
11 Inflorescence a terminal head of many flowers. | |
12 Head flattened, either subtended by 4 large white bracts or by an involucre with >5 green phyllaries. | |
13 Head subtended by an involucre of >5 green phyllaries; leaves with venation otherwise; flowers 5-merous | |
11 Inflorescence otherwise (if terminal, the flowers not arranged in heads), 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; [Buxus] BUXACEAE; [Exochorda] ROSACEAE; various other [see spreadsheet]} | |
16 Leaves not glandular-punctate and aromatic (only herbaceous Hypericum sometimes with black or transluscent leaf punctae, thus keyed instead in S1); flowers with 1-5 or 8-10 stamens; fruit not a berry, instead either a capsule (Hypericum), drupe (Cornus; Viburnum), follicle (APOCYNACEAE), or prominently ribbed and stipitate anthocarp (Pisonia). | |
17 Fruit lacking prominent glandular ribs, the fruit not generally sticky. | |
14 Inflorescence either terminal, axillary or leaf-opposed, if terminal elongate (not flat-topped) or flowers solitary; if axillary then variously arranged (sometimes also solitary in the axils). | |
21 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). | |
22 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 | |
21 Carpels 1-5 (-6), fused; stamens either 1-5 or 8-10 (except 10+ in MYRTACEAE); 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 OR sometimes solitary (MYRTACEAE, SANTALACEAE, and THESIACEAE); [Eudicots]. | |
24 Leaves conspicuously glandular-punctate and aromatic, evergreen and usually coriaceous; fruit a berry or apically-dehiscent capsule; flowers with abundant stamens and a cup-shaped hypanthium. | |
24 Leaves not both conspicuously glandular-punctate nor aromatic, membranous and deciduous; fruit a drupe or berry; flowers with 1-5 or 8-10 stamens, with or without a cup-shaped hypanthium. | |
23 Ovary superior (flowers hypogynous); corolla primarily radially symmetrical (zygomorphic in Citharexylum in VERBENACEAE and MALPIGHIACEAE; absent in Forestiera in OLEACEAE); fruit either a 1-4-seeded drupe, or a many-seeded berry (or berry-like fruit), or a capsule. | |
28 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] | |
30 Petals clawed (the bases much thinner than the broader tips); fruit a drupe; inflorescence a terminal raceme (Byrsonima) or axillary corymbs or umbels (Malpighia); [in part, Byrsonima and Malpighia; some vining species will grow shrub-like, but those keyed in J3; TX and FL only in our area] | |
30 Petals not clawed, the width similar throughout; fruit a drupe or capsule; inflorescence axillary and terminal. | |
31 Fruit a loculicidal capsule, dehiscing into 3 valves; branches square in ×-section; leaves < 2 cm long; [exotic, cultivated and weakly established, of temperate areas] | |
31 Fruit a drupe with 2-4 pyrenes; branches round or nearly so in ×-section; leaves > 2 cm long; [natives, of peninsular FL] | |
32 Inflorescence a drooping axillary raceme (sometimes minutely so), flowers zygomorphic; fruit a drupe | |
32 Inflorescence various, if a raceme then not conspicuously drooping, flowers actinomorphic; fruit a drupe or capsule. | |