Rhatany or ratany [For either Johann Georg Heinrich Kramer, 1684–1744, Austrian Army physician and botanist, or his son William Heinrich Kramer, d. 1765, Austrian physician and naturalist, or both] Rhatany or ratany [For either Johann Georg Heinrich Kramer, 1684–1744, Austrian Army physician and botanist, or his son William Heinrich Kramer, d. 1765, Austrian physician and naturalist, or both]

Stems consisting of long shoots only or long and short shoots, canescent, strigose, or villous; bark gray or brown. Leaves: blade linear to ovate, ape\× mucronate, acute, or obtuse, surfaces canescent, strigose, or villous, sometimes with stalked glandular hairs. Inflorescences with leafy bracts. Flowers: sepals purple, pink, or magenta [yellow or brown], lanceolate to ovate or oblong; petals smaller than sepals, secretory petals pink, red, red-brown, green, yellow, purple, or orange, orbiculate to cuneate, petaloid petals green or yellow with expanded distal portions partially purple or pink; stamens pink, green, or white, didynamous or equal; ovary strigose or tomentose; style curved, red, pink, or greenish white, glabrous; stigma recessed. Capsules globose or slightly compressed laterally, circular or cordate in outline with longitudinal ridge across 1 or both faces; spines slender to stout, glabrous or hairy proximally, smooth or with retrorse or recurved barbs distally. Seeds brown. x = 6.

Species 18 (4 in the flora): United States, Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America.

Lower Taxa

• Krameria bicolor S. Watson
• Krameria erecta Willdenow
• Krameria lanceolata Torrey
• Krameria ramosissima (A. Gray) S. Watson