Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Astraea
Habit Herbs [subshrubs, shrubs], annual [perennial], monoecious; hairs unbranched and stellate; latex colorless.
Leaves

alternate, simple [palmately compound];

stipules present, persistent;

petiole present, glands present at apex;

blade unlobed or palmately lobed, margins serrate [entire], laminar glands absent;

venation palmate at base, pinnate distally.
Inflorescences

bisexual (pistillate flowers proximal, staminate distal), terminal, racemes [thyrses];

glands subtending each bract 0.
Pedicels

present.
Staminate flowers

sepals 5, imbricate, distinct;

petals 5, distinct, white [to pink];

nectary extrastaminal, 5 glands;

stamens 8–15, inflexed in bud, distinct;

pistillode absent.
Pistillate flowers

sepals 5(–7), usually not touching in bud, connate basally;

petals 0;

nectary 5 glands;

pistil 3-carpellate;

styles 3, connate basally [distinct], multifid.
Fruits

capsules.
Seeds

oblong-rectangular;

caruncle present.
x

= 9.

Astraea
Distribution
Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; tropical and subtropical areas [Introduced, Fla.; introduced also in Asia (Arabian Peninsula, India), Africa]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species ca. 12 (1 in the flora).

Astraea was treated as a section of Croton by G. L. Webster (1993). However, the molecular phylogeny of P. E. Berry et al. (2005) showed that it represents a lineage distinct from Croton. Morphological characters that support this separation include the markedly rectangular seeds, the often deeply lobed leaves, and the mixture of simple and stellate hairs. Astraea is most diverse in southeastern Brazil.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 12, p. 205. Authors: Paul E. Berry, Benjamin W. van Ee.
Parent taxa Euphorbiaceae
Subordinate taxa
A. lobata
Name authority Klotzsch: Arch. Naturgesch. (Berlin) 7: 194. (1841)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers