Phrymaceae (fri-MA-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Herbaceous plants or small shrubs
- Leaves opposite and simple
- Flowers tubular, generally two-lipped
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Annual herbs and perennial shrubs
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets), generally entire (with smooth margins) or toothed
- Opposite (2 leaves at each junction with stem)
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) usually a raceme (unbranched stem with stalked flowers opening from the bottom up) or 1-2 in the leaf axils (junction with stem)
- Bisexual and usually bilaterally-symmetrical flowers
- Long, usually ribbed floral tube
- 5 fused petals, in distinctly-shaped upper and lower sets
- 2-part stigma (pollen-receiving part of the pistil/female structure)
- Stigma closes when touched to prevent self-pollination
- 4 stamens (male flower parts)
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit generally a capsule (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity) with many small seeds
Notes
- Approximately 200 species worldwide, most in North America and Australia
- Includes lopseed (Phryma leptostachya) and many species of monkeyflowers, as well as some aquatic species
- Scientific name from the included genus Phryma, apparently from the Greek phyrama, “a resin” or “kneaded substance”
- Represented by 4 species at Edgewood
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
