Pedaliaceae

Plant Characteristics

Cultivation

Scientific Names

Read about Pedaliaceae in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Pedaliaceae (from the genus Pedalium, signifying a rudder, in reference to the winged angles of the fruit). Pedalium Family. Fig. 52. Herbs, rarely shrubs, covered with peculiar slime-secreting glands: leaves opposite, or alternate above: flowers bisexual, irregular; calyx 5-cleft; corolla 5-lobed, gamopetalous, more or less curved but indistinctly if at all 2-lipped; stamens 4, didynamous, often with an extra staminodium, sub-epipetalous; hypogynous disk inequilateral; ovary superior or rarely inferior, 2—4-celled or falsely 1-celled; style 1; stigmas 2-4: fruit a capsule, or a hard indehiscent structure which is often covered with stiff or hooked spines or wings; seeds 1 to several, attached to central placentae. In this family are 14 genera and about 50 species, of tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Arabia, farther India, Ceylon, Australia, and East Indies. They are mostly strand or xerophytic plants. The family is most closely related to the Scrophulariaceae, and to the Martyniaceae, with which latter family it is often united. The peculiar slime-glands, the queer fruit, and the axial seeds are important characters. The seeds of Sesamum indicum yield an oil called benne oil or oil of sesame, which is used as food after the manner of olive oil. The oil is also used as a cosmetic and as a medicine. This plant has been cultivated for ages in the orient, and is now cultivated in other lands, the oil being used in the manufacture of soap. Harpagophytum procumbens is the famous grapple-plant of South Africa, the fruits of which are difficult to separate from wool and clothing. The fruits of several species of Uncarina are almost as bad. A mucilaginous medicinal drink is made from the leaves of Pedalium Murex in India. These leaves are also used to thicken milk, to which they give a rich appearance. The genera in cultivation in N. America are: Ceratotheca, ornamental greenhouse plants, and grown in Florida, with indistinctly hooked capsules; Sesamum, grown for oil, medicine, or ornament, outdoor annual, capsule not hooked. CH The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

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References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

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