Barleria

Barleria lancifolia, copyright Roger & Alison Heath.

Belongs within: Acanthoideae.

Barleria is a pantropical genus of often spiny shrubs and perennial herbs.

Characters (from Flora of Pakistan): Armed or unarmed herbs or shrubs. Leaves petiolate to almost sessile, simple, entire, cystoliths present on both sides. Flowers often large and showy yellow, blue-purple or white, in axillary or terminal spikes; bracts entire or serrate, often spinescent or ciliate rarely absent; bracteoles linear or absent. Calyx deeply four-lobed; lobes imbricate, unequal, narrow, occasionally spit tipped. Corolla infundibuliform or salver-shaped; tube slender, straight incurved; limb subequally five-lobed or obscurely two-lipped, upper lip four-lobed, lobes patent, imbricate, rounded or ovate. Stamens 4, all fertile and more or less exserted, or two posterior ones staminodial and partly sterile or absent, anthers dithecous, oblong, muticous, emucronate. Ovary oblong-conical, two- or four-ovuled; style thickened at apex; stigma minutely bifid or entire. Capsule ovoid-oblong elliptic-obovoid, flattened, more or less stipitate, pointed above, seminiferous below the middle, two- or four-seeded. Seeds flat, ovate or orbiculate, covered with hygroscopic hairs, rarely glabrous, on hooked funicles.

<==Barleria (see below for synonymy) SV00
    |--B. (subg. Barleria) fulvostellata D08
    `--B. subg. Prionitis D08
         |--B. sect. Cavirostrata D08
         |    |--B. (sect. *Cavirostrata) grandis Hochst. ex Nees 1847 D08
         |    |--B. descampsii Lindau 1897 (see below for synonymy) D08
         |    |--B. gibsonii D08
         |    |--B. gibsonioides D08
         |    |--B. grandipetala De Wild. 1915 D08
         |    |--B. montana D08
         |    |--B. prattensis D08
         |    `--B. richardsiae Darbyshire 2008 D08
         |--B. sect. Somalia D08
         |    |--B. alata D08
         |    `--B. lancifolia D08
         `--B. (sect. Stellatohirta) splendens D08

Barleria incertae sedis:
  B. acanthoides PP07
  B. bispinosa SV00
  B. cristata P03
  B. damarensis CV06
  B. dinteri CV06
  B. hochstetteri SV00
  B. jubata CV06
  B. kaloxytona CV06
  B. lanceolata CV06
  B. meeuseana CV06
  B. merxmuelleri CV06
  B. micans SV00
  B. oenotheroides SV00
  B. prionitis OP01
  B. repens SV00
  B. solitaria CV06
  B. strigosa P03

Barleria [incl. Barleriacanthus, Barlerianthus, Barleriosiphon, Barlerites, Dicranacanthus, Isaloa, Parabarleria, Pseudo-Barleria] SV00

Barleria descampsii Lindau 1897 [incl. B. argenteo-calycina De Wild. 1915, B. briartii De Wils. & Durand in Durand & De Wildeman 1900, B. paludosa Moore 1910] D08

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[CV06] Craven, P., & P. Vorster. 2006. Patterns of plant diversity and endemism in Namibia. Bothalia 36 (2): 175–189.

[D08] Darbyshire, I. 2008. A reassessment of the status of Barleria sect. Cavirostrata (Acanthaceae) in tropical Africa, with a new species, B. richardsiae, described from the Tanzania-Zambia border region. Kew Bulletin 63 (4): 601–611.

[OP01] Olmstead, R. G., C. W. dePamphilis, A. D. Wolfe, N. D. Young, W. J. Elisons & P. A. Reeves. 2001. Disintegration of the Scrophulariaceae. American Journal of Botany 88 (2): 348–361.

[PP07] Pandey, R. P., & P. M. Padhye. 2007. Studies on phytodiversity of Arid Machia Safari Park-Kailana in Jodhpur (Rajasthan). Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India 49: 15–78.

[P03] Paul, T. K. 2003. Botanical observations on the Purulia pumped storage hydropower project area, Bagmundi Hills, Purulia district, West Bengal. Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India 45: 121–142.

[SV00] Scotland, R. W., & K. Vollesen. 2000. Classification of Acanthaceae. Kew Bulletin 55 (3): 513–589.