Portulacaceae
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Family
Portulacaceae (Magnoliophyta)
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Scientific Name
Portulacaceae
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Description
Number of genera: 20
Number of species: 500
Description (from PLANTAE): Herbs or suffrutescent shrubs, the herbs usually succulent. Roots sometimes tuberous. Stipules absent, but axillary hairs, bristles or scales often present. Leaves alternate or appearing opposite, often rosulate, simple; petioles poorly defined; blades flattened to terete, usually succulent, the margins entire. Inflorescences cymose, the cymes arranged in racemes, condensed heads or the flowers solitary. Flowers usually actinomorphic, bisexual, often showy, subtended by 2 or 5 sepal-like bracts, the bracts distinct or basally connate, green, herbaceous, sometimes caducous; perianth uniseriate, the tepals 4–6 (sometimes 2-many), distinct or connate basally; androecium usually distinct, sometimes adnate to the perianth, the stamens as many and opposite the tepals or 2-4 times as many by splitting, the filaments free, the anthers 2-celled, introrse, dehiscing longitudinally; androecium syncarpous, superior or half inferior, the carpels usually 2 or 3, the locules 1, the placentation basal or free central, the ovules 2-many (rarely 1), the style 1, cleft to various lengths, the stigmas and style branches as many as carpels. Fruit capsule, circumscissile or loculicidal by 2-3 apical valves, rarely indehiscent nut. Seeds usually 3 (or 1-many), usually lenticular, the testa often sculptured, the embryo slender, peripheral, ± curved around the abundant perisperm.
Distribution (from PLANTAE): Cosmopolitan, but best developed in western North America and the Andes of South America.
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Floras and Monographs
Portulacaceae: [Book] Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
