''Pterodiscus'' is a genus of

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

in the

Pedaliaceae Pedaliaceae, the pedalium family or sesame family, is a flowering plant family classified in the order (biology), order Lamiales. The family includes sesame (''Sesamum indicum''), the source of sesame seeds. It comprises 13 genera and approx ...

family comprising several species with a native range from Ethiopia to S. Africa. The range passes through the countries of

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

and

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

. Plus it is found also within the

Provinces of South Africa South Africa is divided into nine provinces. On the eve of the 1994 South African general election, 1994 general election, South Africa's former homelands, known as Bantustans, were reintegrated into the country, and the four provinces were incr ...

Cape Provinces The Cape Provinces of South Africa is a biogeographical area used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD). It is part of the WGSRPD region 27 Southern Africa. The area has the code "CPP". It includes the Sou ...

, Free State,

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

and

Northern Provinces The Northern Provinces of South Africa is a biogeographical area used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD). It is part of the WGSRPD region 27 Southern Africa. The area has the code "TVL". It includes the ...

. The genus was originally established by

William Jackson Hooker Sir William Jackson Hooker (6 July 178512 August 1865) was an English botany, botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew Gardens, Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botan ...

from one species found in South Africa, ''Pterodiscus speciosus''.Ib Friis and Olof Ryding (Editors) The species was first published and described by

in Curtis's Bot. Mag. Vol.70 on table 4117 in 1844. The genus is accepted by

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and producti ...

and the

Agricultural Research Service The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is the principal in-house research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). ARS is one of four agencies in USDA's Research, Education and Economics mission area. ARS is charged with ext ...

but they do not list any species.

General description

They are perennial herbs,Focke Albers that have a thick

caudex A caudex (: caudices) of a plant is a stem, but the term is also used to mean a rootstock and particularly a basal stem structure from which new growth arises.pages 456 and 695 In the strict sense of the term, meaning a stem, "caudex" is most ...

(rootstock), that is either part of an underground tuber which is as wide as the above ground caudex, or the underground tuber can be wider and broader. Overall the plant does not reach more than high. From the caudex, an unbranched stem arises, normally every year. The leaves are sub-succulent and fleshy, and very variable in shape, ranging from linear to strap-shaped, undulate to broadly oblong. They are dentate (toothed), pinnatilobed, pinnatifid (meaning

pinnate Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and ...

ly dissected to the central vein) or pinnatipartite. The solitary flowers arise from the leaf axils, which come in a range of colours, from yellow, (sometimes suffused with purple,) brilliant orange, red, wine-red, purple to dark purple. The calyx is small. The corolla is funnel-shaped or narrowly cylindrical, often slightly gibbous (rounded protuberance) at the base with a reduced spur. They have 4

stamens The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filamen ...

and a bilocular (or 2 compartmented)

ovary The ovary () is a gonad in the female reproductive system that produces ova; when released, an ovum travels through the fallopian tube/ oviduct into the uterus. There is an ovary on the left and the right side of the body. The ovaries are end ...

). The fruit (or seed capsule) is

indehiscent Dehiscence is the splitting of a mature plant structure along a built-in line of weakness to release its contents. This is common among fruits, anthers and sporangia. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part. Structures that ...

(does not split down the side), instead it has 4 broad longitudinal, prominent wings (which are parchment-like). The upper part of the capsule is beak-like. The seeds are variable in both shape and structure of the testa.

Etymology

The genera name is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

word '' ptero'' meaning 'winged' and the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word ''discus'' meaning 'disc'. This refers to the fruit structure, a flattened fruit that bears wings.

Species

There were 18 named species in tropical and South Africa, but most of these were found to be synonyms of other species. Known species include (according to

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is ...

, and

Tropicos Tropicos is an online botanical database containing taxonomic information on plants, mainly from the Neotropical realm ( Central, and South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Sou ...

): *'' Pterodiscus angustifolius'' Engl. *'' Pterodiscus aurantiacus'' Welw. *'' Pterodiscus brasiliensis'' (J.Gay ex DC.) Asch. *'' Pterodiscus coeruleus'' Chiov. *'' Pterodiscus kellerianus'' Schinz. *'' Pterodiscus ruspolii'' Engl. *'' Pterodiscus speciosus'' Hook. '' Pterodiscus saccatus'' S.Moore and '' Pterodiscus undulatus'' Baker are listed by Hans-Dieter Ihlenfeldt, and '' Pterodiscus ngamicus'' N.E.Br. ex Stapf by Flora of Botswana. Also ''P. somaliensis'' Baker ex Stapf, ''P. wellbyi'' Stapf, ''P. heterophyllus'' Stapf, and ''P. purpureus'' Chiov. are listed as synonyms in 2001. While

Encyclopedia of Life The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is a free, online encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It aggregates content to form "pages" for every known species. Content is compiled from existing trusted ...

, lists 14 species including; ''Pterodiscus angustifolius'' Engl., ''Pterodiscus aurantiacus'' Welw., ''Pterodiscus cinnabarinus'' Peckover, ''Pterodiscus coeruleus'' Chiov., ''Pterodiscus elliottii'' Baker ex Stapf, ''Pterodiscus gayi'' Decne., ''Pterodiscus kellerianus'' Schinz, ''Pterodiscus luridus'' Hook. fil., ''Pterodiscus makatiniensis'' Peckover, ''Pterodiscus ngamicus'' N. E. Brown ex Stapf, ''Pterodiscus ruspolii'' Engl., ''Pterodiscus saccatus'' S. Moore, ''Pterodiscus speciosus'' Hook. and ''Pterodiscus undulatus'' Baker fil.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q310340 Pedaliaceae Lamiales genera Flora of South Africa