Author:
Qjure
Book:
Qjurious
Type:
Info
Chapter:
3-665.60.00
Acanthaceae
English: Acanthus family; Shrimp-plant family.
French: Acanthacees.
Clades: Verbenales.
Members: 250 genera; 2500 species.
Habitat: tropical, subtropical.
Region: Indonesia, Malaysia, Africa, Brazil, Central America.
Content: alkaloids, phenols, terpenoids, tannins, quinones, cardiac glycosides, saponins, carbohydrates, flavonoids, proteins.
DD: Silver series, Oxygen, Phosphor.
Botany
Herbs, shrubs, subshrubs, perennial climbers, rarely small or large trees, twining vines or epiphytes; annual and perennial; erect; prostrate or rarely climbing.
Stems: round to quadrangular.
Leaves: simple; opposite; decussate; sinuate; estipulate; usually entire margin; swollen nodeswith cystoliths, calcium carbonate.
Inflorescence: solitary or racemose; axilllary cymes, or spike, raceme.
Flowers: with , conspicious, volucral bracts, bracteoles; colourful; large and showy; petals 5, fussed, connate, tubular; nectar disk.
Fruit: capsule, dehiscing explosively; seeds 2 to 4.
Seeds: borne on hook like retinacula, a small, hooked stalk; surface smooth or roughened; lacking trichomes or pubescent; sometimes with hygroscopic trichomes, expanding when moistened.
Taxonomy
In the Apg3 classification Acanthaceae is a Family in Lamiales.
Acanthaceae was formerly placed in Scrophulariales. The older families Avicenniaceae, Mendonciaceae, Nelsoniaceae and Thunbergiaceae are included in Acanthaceae.
In the Plant theory Verbenales is split off from Lamiales. Acanthaceae is in Subphase 2 in Verbenales. Acanthaceae have cystoliths which are small points of calcium carbonate. The Calcium coincides with the Phase 2.