Abstract
EPHEDRA is one of the three genera of the small Gymnospermous order Gnetaceæ, the two others being Gnetum and Welwitschia, that most curious of all gymnospermous plants. Ephedra is a type of remarkable habit, specially modified, though in a different way from Welwitschia, to inhabit the dry and sandy regions of the world. It has shrubby stems, with copious slender, whip-like, straight or turning branches, foliar organs and flower-wrapper reduced to a minimum, unisexual mostly dioicous flowers in small catkins with dry imbricated scales, the female catkins containing one or two flowers only, and the males several, with from two to eight stamens with the filaments usually joined in a column. The species are numerous and difficult of determination, partly because the leaves are nearly suppressed, partly because the stems of all the species are very similar, and that it is needful to have both staminate and pistillate flowers to study before any given plant can be determined confidently.
Die Arten der Gattung Ephedra.
Von Dr. Otto Stapf. Pp. 112, 1 Map and 5 Plates. (Vienna: R. Tempsky, 1889.)
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
B., J. Die Arten der Gattung Ephedra. Nature 41, 390 (1890). https://doi.org/10.1038/041390a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/041390a0