8. Andrachne L., Sp. Pl. 1014. 1753. Gen. Pl., ed. 5: 444. 1754; Muell. Arg. in DC., Prodr.15(2): 232.1866; Beath. & Hook. f., Gen. Pl. 3(1): 270. 1880; Hook, f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 5: 283. 1887; Pax in Engl., Pflanzeneich 4. 147. 15: 169. 1922; Rech. f. & Schirnan-Czeika, Fl. Iranica 6: 1. 1964; Stewart, Ann. Cat. Vasc. Pl. W. Pak. & Kashm. 444.1972.
A. RADCLIFFE-SMITH
Monoecious, prostrate, decumbent or erect, unarmed or spinous perennial herbs or erect shrubs, with or without a simple or glandular indumentum. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate, simple, entire, penninerved. Flowers axillary, pedicellate, the males usually fasciculate, the females solitary. Male flowers: sepals 5(-6), free or ± so, imbricate; petals 5(-6), usually shorter than the sepals; disc-glands 5(-6), free, opposite the petals; stamens 5(-6), opposite the sepals, filaments free or partially connate, anthers erect, introrse, the loculi parallel, distinct, longitudinally dehiscent; pistillode usually small and trilobate or tripartite. Female flowers: sepals usually larger than those of the male flowers; petals small, minute or absent; disc-glands as in the ♂ flowers, or united; ovary 3-celled, with 2 ovules per cell; styles 3, short, bifid or bipartite, stigmas capitate. Fruit globose or subglobose, dehiscing into 3 bivalved cocci; endocarp thinly woody. Seeds 2 per cell, segmentiform, triquetrous, pustulate, smooth or foveolate, ecarunculate; albumen fleshy; embryo curved, radicle long, cotyledons broad, flat.
A widespread genus of 25 species in the tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres, extending into the Mediterranean region and temperate Asia. Andrachne is represented in Pakistan by three species, one of which (Andrachne cordifolia (Decne.) Muell. Arg.) is sometimes treated as belonging to a separate genus, Leptopus Decne. (see, for example, A.I. Pojarkova (1960), ‘Incrementa ad monographiam generum Andrachne L. et. Leptopus Decne’. Not. Syst. (Moscow & Leningrad) 20: 251-274.)
