Alchemilla
Content
Description
Perennial or annual, erect or prostrate herbs or suffrutices.
Leaves simple, usually petioled, ± orbicular in outline, palmately to pedately nerved and palmately incised, folded in bud.
Stipules rather large.
Flowers sometimes solitary, usually in cymes, corymbs, or racemes, small, 4-merous (more rarely 5-merous), bisexual.
Sepals valvate.
Petals absent.
Stamens 1, 2, or 4, rarely 5, inserted outside or inside the disc, epi- or alternisepalous, short, pollen in many species sterile (apogamy).
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Jawa (Jawa present)
Subcosmopolitan, in all continents. Many species synanthropous and areas not always entirely natural. In Malesia one species (Java).
Notes
The number of species may be about 200-400 but as in other apogamous groups it depends very much on the species concept used. Over 300 microspecies have been described in Europe.
For the description given above, a broad delimitation of the genus is used, i.e. including Aphanes, Lachemilla, and Zygalchemilla.
For the description given above, a broad delimitation of the genus is used, i.e. including Aphanes, Lachemilla, and Zygalchemilla.