''Lasiodiscus'', commonly known as red-hair bushes, is a small plant genus in the family
Rhamnaceae
The Rhamnaceae are a large Family (biology), family of flowering plants, mostly trees, shrubs, and some vines, commonly called the buckthorn family. Rhamnaceae is included in the order Rosales.
The family contains about 55 genera and 950 specie ...
. It is endemic to Africa and its adjacent islands.
Description
The small trees have opposite, often asymmetric leaves. As with ''
Colubrina'', the flower ovaries are surrounded by a nectariferous disc that fills the receptacle.
Habitat
They regularly occur in the understorey of tropical forests, or alternatively in swamp forest. One species, ''L. rozeirae'', is limited to mountain forest understorey.
Relationships
''Lasiodiscus'' is morphologically similar to ''
Colubrina'', which occurs in the Neotropics, Asia and Afrotropics, but preliminary molecular analysis failed to group them as nearest relatives.
[A phylogenetic analysis of Rhamnaceae using RBCL and TRNL-F plastid DNA sequences, J.E. Richardson et al., American Journal of Botany, 87(9), 2000.]
Species
There are 9 accepted species:
* ''
Lasiodiscus chevalieri''
Hutch. –
* ''
Lasiodiscus fasciculiflorus''
Engl. – Sierra Leone to Nigeria, w Cameroon and D.R.C.
* ''
Lasiodiscus holtzii''
Engl. – East Africa
* ''
Lasiodiscus mannii''
Hook. – central Africa
* ''
Lasiodiscus marmoratus''
C.H. Wright – Cameroon
* ''
Lasiodiscus mildbraedii''
Engl. – African tropics and locally along east coast to
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
* ''
Lasiodiscus pervillei''
Baill. – Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion and Comores
: ''L. p. pervillei'' – widespread in Madagascar
: ''L. p. ferrugineus''
(Verdc.) Figueiredo – local and vulnerable in East Africa
* ''
Lasiodiscus rozeirae''
A.W. Exell – São Tomé in Gulf of Guinea, vulnerable
* ''
Lasiodiscus usambarensis''
Engl. – Usambara Mountains and locally to Zimbabwe
References
External links
Flora of ZimbabweMadagascar CatalogueDescription of L. pervillei
Note: The ''Lasiodiscidae'' belongs to the
Foraminifera
Foraminifera ( ; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are unicellular organism, single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class (biology), class of Rhizarian protists characterized by streaming granular Ectoplasm (cell bio ...
and Reichel (1945) described the genus ''Lasiodiscus''.
Rhamnaceae genera
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