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37. Thelethylax C. Cusset

Thelethylax C. Cusset, Adansonia II, 12: 564 (1972).

Roots ribbon-like, up to 1 mm wide, branched, bearing shoots along margins; vegetative shoots and reproductive short-shoots of different shapes; vegetative stems bearing up to 20 simple leaves in a rosette, or up to 4 elongate and repeatedly forked leaves with linear ultimate segments, up to 1 m long; flowering stems bearing few-leaved rosettes, widened and overlapping at base, filamentous above. Spathellas obovoid, splitting irregularly. Flowers strongly inclined or inverted in unruptured spathella, terminal, solitary; tepals usually 3, one each side of andropodium base, the third between the two filaments, or rarely 2 one each side of andropodium base; stamens 2, borne on an andropodium; pollen in dyads; ovaries 2-locular. Capsules obovoid, ± 1 mm long; valves equal or unequal, each with 3 wide ribs; stigmas linear. Two spp., T. isalensis (Perrier) C. Cusset and T. minutiflora (Tulasne) C. Cusset, Madagascar.

 

 

 

 

Subfam. Podostemoideae

Thelethylax minutiflora. D Vegetative shoot (1 cm). E Flower (1 mm). F Inverted flower removed from the spathella (1 mm).

Cook & Rutishauser 2007

 
       
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