Campanulaceae
E. NASIR
National Herbarium, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad.
Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes lactiferous. Roots and rhizomes often thickened and tuberous. Leaves simple, usually alternate, sometimes opposite, exstipulate. Stems erect, decumbent, trailing or climbing. Flowers usually hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, regular, sometimes cleistogamous. Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary. Sepals with linear to triangular or lanceolate segments. Corolla united, campanulate, infundibuliform or tubular, 5-lobed, sometimes the segments split to the base. Stamens 5 with flattened filaments. Ovary inferior, (2-)3-5 locular, with numerous ovules; styles thick with 3, sometimes 2 stigmas. Fruit a capsule, dehiscing by valves or pores.
A large family with about 40 genera and 600 species, mainly in the northern hemisphere. Represented in Pakistan by 3 genera and c.26 native species.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for financing this research under PL-480. We are also thankful to the Directors of the Herbaria, Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and at Edinburgh for the loan of herbarium specimens and ,to Mr. I.C. Hedge for going through the manuscript and the latin diagnosis of the new species of Campanula.
