Myriandra (Nomenclature)
Shrubs, shrublets or perennial herbs up to 4.5 m tall, (the shrubs) deciduous, glabrous, without dark glands; branching dichasial/monochasial or rarely pseudo-dichotomous or mixed. Stems 2-4-lined and usually compressed (ancipitous) when young, usually terete, apparently eglandular; cortex exfoliating in flakes or strips; bark thin and smooth or corky and sometimes with laticifers. Leaves opposite, decussate, sessile to subsessile, free, deciduous at basal articulation (where present) or persistent; lamina entire, with venation pinnate and closed to 1-nerved, with tertiary venation densely to laxly reticulate or absent; laminar glands punctiform; marginal gland dots dense; ventral glands absent. Inflorescence 1-∞(over 70)-flowered from uppermost node, some- times also from up to 10 nodes below, branching dichasial or rarely pseudo-dichotomous or mixed, sometimes with subsidiary flowering branches from up to 8 lower nodes; bracts and bracteoles usually reduced, rarely transitional. Flowers stellate, homostylous. Sepals (3-)4-5(-6), free, persistent and spreading to reflexed or deciduous in fruit, with margin entire; veins l-5(-9); laminar glands punctiform; marginal glands rather sparse, submarginal and inframarginal glands absent. Petals (3-)4-5(-6), deciduous, with apiculus present, lateral or rarely subapical, apiculate to obtuse or acute, or absent; margin entire, marginal glands absent; laminar glands sparse, striiform to punctiform, or absent. Stamen fascicles 4-5, not distinguishable individually, forming continuous narrow to broad band of 30-650 stamens (i.e. 6-30 per fascicle), stamens individually deciduous or persistent; filaments free; anthers yellow, gland amber; pollen type VII. Ovary with 2-5 incompletely axile to parietal placentae, each ∞-ovulate; styles 2-5(6), free but mutually appressed at anthesis, later often spreading or recurved; stigmas minute. Capsule 2-5-valved, subcoriaceous, not vittate. Seeds ± broadly cylindric, carinate or not, without apical expansion; testa linear-reticulate or reticulate to linear-foveolate or scalariform.
BASIC CHROMOSOME NUMBER (x). 9, 8; ploidy 2, 3 (cf. Sp. 5), 4? (cf. Sp. 1).
Open, dry (cedar glades, barrens, shales, river bottoms, rocky slopes, dry woods) or damp to wet (moist crevices, ditches, seepage areas, meadows, marshes, bogs, swamps, ponds and lakesides), on granite or limestone or (Cuba) white sand; 0-1560 m (N. America), -1650 m (Jamaica), -1800 m (Guatemala), -2000 m (Cuba), -2900 m (Hispaniola).
Canada (Newfoundland to Ontario), eastern U.S.A. (westward to Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas), eastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Greater Antilles, Bahamas, Bermuda, Azores (introduced?)
29 species (+ 2 subspecies).