Lysinema R.Br.
Prodr. 552 (1810)

Name Status: Current
Browse to the list of specimens for Lysinema R.Br.

Scientific Description
H.R. Coleman, Thursday 8 September 2016

Family Epacridaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs; evergreen; leptocaul, or pachycaul. Helophytic to xerophytic. Leaves minute to small (erect, keeled); alternate; spiral, or four-ranked; ‘herbaceous’, or leathery; imbricate, or not imbricate; petiolate to sessile; non-sheathing (although stem-clasping); simple. Leaf blades entire; flat; palmately veined; cross-venulate, or without cross-venules. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins flat. Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.


Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary, or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; when solitary, axillary (and scattered along the branchlets); in spikes, or in heads. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary; leafy. Flowers subsessile to sessile; bracteate; bracteolate; small to medium-sized; fragrant, or odourless; regular; (4–)5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present; intrastaminal; of separate members (5 scales). Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; polysepalous; imbricate; usually exceeded by the corolla; regular; persistent. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous, or gamopetalous; lobed (lobes spreading horizontally); contorted; tubular (tube cylindric, separating in the lower half into distinct petal claws but cohering towards the throat); regular; white, or cream, or red; persistent, or deciduous. Androecium 5. Androecial members free of the perianth, or adnate (slightly, to the corolla tube); all equal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; becoming exserted, or remaining included; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; all alternating with the corolla members. Anthers all alike (linear in outline); attached at or above the middle; becoming inverted during development, their morphological bases ostensibly apical in the mature stamens; non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits (by a single median slit); finally introrse (inverting during development); unilocular, or bilocular; bisporangiate; unappendaged. Pollen shed in aggregates, or shed as single grains; without viscin strands; in diads, or in triplets, or in tetrads. Gynoecium 5 carpelled. The pistil 5 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 5 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; long and slender; from a depression at the top of the ovary; apical; becoming exserted, or not becoming exserted. Stigmas 1; truncate, or clavate, or capitate. Placentation axile. Ovules 3–20 per locule (i.e. ‘numerous’); pendulous; non-arillate; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; dehiscent; a capsule. Capsules loculicidal. Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Seeds wingless. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.



Additional characters Prophylls numerous (appressed to the sepals, the bracts and sepals together forming a narrow involucre around each individual flower).

Taxonomic Literature
