Crumenaria Mart., Nov. Gen. Sp .

Pl. 2: 68. 1826.

Type species: Crumenaria decumbens Mart.

Annual or perennial herbs, leafy or almost leafless; leaves alternate, with stipules. Inflorescence a 1-14 flowered umbel, terminal or axilar. Flowers pedicellated, with campanulate or turbinate-campanulate floral tube. Calix with 5 sepals triangular, erect. Petals 5, cucullate, clawed, erect. Disc absent. Stamens opposite and hidden within the petals, with thread-like filaments with curved apex, anthers dorsifixed, cordate, obtuse, with 2 loculi, and lateral-longitudinal dehiscence. Ovary inferior, obconic, trilocular, with solitary ovules in each loculus; style included or exserted, 3-toothed or divided in three branches; stigma obtuse. Fruit 3-seeded schizocarps, with winged membranous diaspores. Seeds obovate, dorsally convex, ventrally angled, tegument corneous, lustrous, endosperm thin, cotyledons elliptic, compressed, radicle very short.

Key to the species of Crumenaria

1. Inflorescence axillary ..................................................... 2

1a. Inflorescence terminal. Perennial rhizomatous herbs .... 3

2. Annual herbs. Flowers solitary or paired ... C. decumbens

2a. Perennial herbs, with rhizome and xylopodium. Flowers grouped 4 to 8 ................................................ C. glaziovii

3. Floral tube glaber. Plants with junciform-polygonoid habit, with scale-like or small linear leaves ................ C. erecta

3a. Floral tube pubescent. Plants with leaves ovate to broadly elliptic .................................................................. C. lilloi