General description:- Herbs or small shrubs.
Leaves:-
1) Usually opposite and fleshy.
Flowers:-
1) Calyx, tubular or inversely turbinate, often with fleshy lobes.
2) Petals, and stamens usually numerous.
3) Ovary, usually inferior or semi-inferior.
Fruit:-
1) Woody, opening on moistening, or fleshy. not indehiscent.
Genus: AIZOON
General description:- Annual.
Leaves:-
1) Usually alternate.
Flowers:-
1) Subsessile, petals absent.
2) Stamens, c. 20, connate in 5 bundles.
3) Stigmas 5.
a) ovary superior.
Fruit:-
1) Capsule, opening by 5 valves at the apex;
2) Seeds, numerous
Genus: APTENIA
Leaves:-
1) Fleshy, flat or smooth and cylindrical, tapering, subterete, alternate or opposite.
Flowers:-
1) Solitary or in cymes.
2) Petals and stamens, numerous.
3) Stigmas, 4.
4) Ovary, inferior;
Fruit:-
1) Capsule, 4-locular with 4 valves, unwinged on the angles
Key features:-
1) Leaves, cordate the at base, papillose.
a) lower, petiolate.
Genus: CARPOBROTUS
Genus description:- Procumbent, woody perennials forming large mats.
Leaves:-
1) Opposite, 3-angled, fleshy.
Flowers:-
1) Solitary, pedunculate.
2) Petals and stamens numerous.
3) Stigmas 8-20.
4) Ovary inferior.
Fruit:-
1) Fleshy, indehiscent.
2) Seeds, mucilaginous.
Key features:-
1) Petals, present.
2) Ovary, inferior or semi-inferior.
3) Stigmas, 8-20.
4) Fruit, fleshy.
5) Seeds, embedded in mucilage.
Genus: MESEMBRYANTHEMUM
Leaves:-
1) Fleshy, flat or smooth and usually subterete, alternate or opposite.
Flowers:-
1) Solitary or in cymes.
2) Petals and stamens numerous.
3) Stigmas, 5.
4) Ovary, inferior.
Fruit:-
1) Capsule, 5 valved, winged on the angles.
Key features:-
1) Leaves, cordate at the base, covered with small, hyaline vesicles.
2) All leaves sessile.
3) Annual.
4) Flowers, subsessile.
Comments:-
Most of the genera that occur in Europe originate from South Africa. They are
cultivated for ornamental use, and many have become naturalized in milder, more or
less frost-free, coastal regions of S. and W. Europe.