Your current navigation map.Ela (Species 1)
Common Names
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Taxonomy
to access the GRIN database record about the specific taxonomical hierarchy (Family, Genus etc.).CLASSIFICATION
TAXON
FAMILY
ALTERNATE FAMILY
TRIBE
SUBTRIBE
GENUS
SPECIES
Plant Description
Herbs perennial, terrestrial, rarely epiphytic, aromatic, with fleshy, tuberous or non-tuberous rhizomes, often with tuber-bearing roots. Stems usually short, replaced by pseudostems formed by leaf sheaths. Leaves distichous, simple, those toward base of plant usually bladeless and reduced to sheaths; leaf sheath open; ligule usually present; petiole present or not, located between leaf blade and sheath, cushionlike in Zingiber; leaf blade suborbicular or lanceolate to narrowly strap-shaped, rolled longitudinally in bud, glabrous or hairy, midvein prominent, lateral veins usually numerous, pinnate, parallel, margin entire. Inflorescence terminal on pseudostems or on separate, short, sheath-covered shoots arising from rhizomes, cylindric or fusiform, sometimes globose, lax to dense, few to many flowered, sometimes with bracteolate cincinni in bract axils and then a thyrse, sometimes a raceme or spike; bracts and bracteoles present, often conspicuous, colored. Flowers bisexual, epigynous, zygomorphic. Calyx usually tubular, thin, split on 1 side, sometimes spathelike, apex 3-toothed or -lobed. Corolla proximally tubular, distally 3-lobed; lobes varying in size and shape. Stamens or staminodes 6, in 2 whorls. Lateral 2 staminodes of outer whorl petaloid, or forming small teeth at base of labellum, or adnate to labellum, or absent. Median staminode of outer whorl always reduced. Labellum formed from lateral 2 staminodes of inner whorl. Fertile stamen median, of inner whorl; filament long or short; anther locules 2, introrse, dehiscing by slits or occasionally pores; connective often extended basally into spurs and/or apically into a crest. Ovary inferior, 3-loculed initially, 1- or 3-loculed when mature; ovules ± numerous per locule; placentation parietal, basal, or axile. Developed style 1, very thin, placed in a furrow in filament and between anther locules; stigma appearing above anther, funnelform, papillose, ± wet, margin often ciliate. Stylodes 2, reduced to nectaries at apex of ovary. Fruit a capsule, fleshy or dry, dehiscent or indehiscent, sometimes berrylike. Seeds few to many, arillate; aril often lobed or lacerate.
*Description source: Not verified.