{"id":10947,"date":"2020-11-10T08:58:21","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T08:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.northafricatrees.org\/family\/acanthaceae-juss\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T11:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:18:11","slug":"acanthaceae-juss","status":"publish","type":"family","link":"https:\/\/www.northafricatrees.org\/en\/families\/acanthaceae-juss\/","title":{"rendered":"ACANTHACEAE Juss."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Family composed of about 242 genera and about 3,950 herbaceous or shrubby species, rarely trees, distributed mainly in tropical and subtropical regions. In North Africa it is represented by 8 genera, 4 of which comprise herbaceous species (<em>Acanthus, Blepharis, Dicliptera<\/em> and <em>Justice<\/em>). <strong>Avicennia <\/strong>have 1 shrub or tree species of more than 3 m in height, typical of coastal mangroves. A further 3 genera (<strong>Ecbolium, Ruellia <\/strong>and<strong> Barleria<\/strong>) comprise shrubs and subshrubs, with <em>E. viride<\/em>, the largest species, reaching 2 m in height. The other 5 woody species of this family found in North Africa do not exceed 50-60 cm in height.<\/p>\n<p><strong> R. patula <\/strong>Jacq., is a subshrub with opposite, ovate and petiolate leaves, with flowers practically solitary, white or pale blue-violet, with corolla tube infundibuliform in the upper half and 5 \u00b1 equal lobes, and androecium didynamous, with included stamens. Relatively common in sub-Saharan Africa and S of the Arabian Peninsula, it is found in the SE of Egypt and in the northern half of Mauritania.<\/p>\n<p>To the genus <strong>Barleria <\/strong>belong the other 4 species, with \u00b1 bilabiate corolla and androecium with 2 exserted stamens attached to the upper lip.\u00a0 <strong>B. schmittii<\/strong> Benoist is a densely branched subshrub, with leaves with a spiny margin and linear-lanceolate bracts with a spine up to 3 cm, and blue-violet flowers; it is endemic to the western Sahara and N of Mauritania. The remaining North African species of the genus are unarmed: <strong>B. acanthoides<\/strong> Vahl (<em>Ara<\/em>. Egypt: Kwataag), has a corolla tube much longer than the lobes (10 times), typical of the desert areas of the S Sahara; in North Africa it is found in the Tibesti Massif (S of Libya) and the mountain ranges of Jebel Elba and surrounding areas (SE of Egypt). <strong>B. lancifolia<\/strong> T.Anderson is characterised by lanceolate leaves and pinkish flowers with a corolla tube \u00b1 the same length of the lobes, typical of tropical and steppic areas of Africa; it is found in the N of Mauritania and probably in SW Morocco. <strong>B. hochstetteri<\/strong> Nees (<em>Ara<\/em>. Egypt: Alimaseib) has ovate leaves and whitish or pinkish flowers, with a corolla tube \u00b1 the same length of the lobes, distributed in eastern Africa and S of the Arabian Peninsula; in North Africa it is found in the SE of Egypt, in the Jebel Elba and nearby mountain ranges.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the <em>IUCN Red List of Threatened Species<\/em>. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) <em>B. schmittii<\/em>\u00a0 has been considered as Critically Endangered (CR). In the Red List of vascular plants of Egypt (<em>Flora Aegyptiaca <\/em>Vol 1, 2000) <em>R. patula<\/em> is listed as \u201cRare\u201d and <em>B. acanthoides<\/em> as \u201cVulnerable\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-10947","family","type-family","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>ACANTHACEAE Juss. - North Africa Trees<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ACANTHACEAE Juss. - North Africa Trees\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Family composed of about 242 genera and about 3,950 herbaceous or shrubby species, rarely trees, distributed mainly in tropical and subtropical regions. In North Africa it is represented by 8 genera, 4 of which comprise herbaceous species (Acanthus, Blepharis, Dicliptera and Justice). 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