54 - Plumbaginaceae

Summary

Perennial or rarely annual herbs or small shrubs. Leaves spirally arranged in a basal rosette, simple, narrowed at base, entire, without stipules. Inflorescence of branched cymes or hemispherical heads; flowers bisexual, hypogynous and actinomorphic. Bracts scarious. Calyx connate below, 5-lobed above, scarious at least above, persistent. Corolla connate at base, with 5 lobes above, pink to blue. Stamens 5, borne at base of corolla. Ovary superior, 1-celled, with 1 basal, anatropous ovule. Styles 5; stigmas linear. Fruit a 1-seeded capsule, dry, with a thin papery wall; seed with a straight embryo in mealy endosperm.

Contains about 19 genera and 780 species, cosmopolitan. Chiefly plants of seashores and salt-steppes, but there are some arctic and alpine species.

Flowers in dense hemispherical heads with a tubular sheath of fused scarious bracts beneath; styles hairy below 1. Armeria

Flowers in branching cymes, with the ultimate unit of 1–5 flowers with 3 scale-like bracts; styles glabrous throughout 2. Limonium

Armeria Willd. nom. conserv.

Statice L.; Polyanthemum Medik.

Caespitose perennial herbs or cushion-forming dwarf shrubs, with a branched, woody stock. Leaves simple, in basal rosettes. Inflorescence a capitulum, with an involucre of imbricate bracts and a tubular, scarious sheath at the base enclosing the top of the scape; flowers usually bracteolate, in usually bracteate, cymose spikelets. Calyx infundibuliform, inserted obliquely, with a basal spur; tube 5- or 10-ribbed; limb scarious; lobes usually awned. Corolla infundibuliform; petals cuneate at the extreme base, persistent. Stamens 5, inserted at the base of the corolla. Styles 5, connate at the base; stigmas plumose. Fruit a 1-seeded capsule, with circumscissile or irregular dehiscence.

Contains about 80 species and many infraspecific taxa of maritime, arctic and alpine habitats in temperate Europe, Asia, North Africa, North America and southern South America.

Most species in temperate Europe show dimorphism of pollen and stigma and are said to be self-incompatible.