Common Name: LEADWORT FAMILY
Habit: Annual to shrub [vine]. Leaf: simple, generally in basal rosette (cauline), entire or lobed. Inflorescence: raceme, cyme, or panicle (head-like in Armeria), generally scapose. Flower: bisexual, radial, generally small; calyx tubular, generally membranous or partly scarious, lobes 5, persistent; petals 5, +- free to +- fused, clawed, +- intertwined; stamens 5, opposite petals, occasionally epipetalous; ovary superior, generally 5-lobed or -ribbed, chamber and ovule 1, styles 5, occasionally fused. Fruit: utricle, achene, or capsule, +- enclosed in calyx.
Genera In Family: 27 genera, +- 1000 species: +- worldwide, especially Mediterranean, western and central Asia. Note: Some cultivated as ornamental (Limonium used as dried flower).
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert E. Preston & Elizabeth McClintock
Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: SEA-LAVENDER, MARSH-ROSEMARY
Habit: (Annual) perennial herb, scapose; rhizome +- woody. Leaf: few to many; basal generally in rosette, oblanceolate to obovate, entire or lobed, generally petioled; cauline generally small, scale-like. Inflorescence: panicle, branched +- at plant base, flowers in sessile, 1--3(5)--flowered spike-like clusters, each 3-bracted at base, clusters evenly spaced along branches to crowded at branch tips. Flower: calyx funnel-shaped, base tubular, lobes generally fused, generally 5--10-ribbed, generally pink to blue; petals free, white to yellow or pale violet; styles 5, +- free.
Etymology: (Greek: meadow, from habitat of many species) Note: Many cultivated species; those of Mediterranean origin potentially could escape and naturalize. Limonium arborescens Kuntze, illeg. may have been misappl. to the waif Limonium brassicifolium (Webb & Berthel.) Kuntze.
Reference: Karis 2004 Biol J Linn Soc 144:461--482
Unabridged Reference: Kunkel & Sunding 1967 Cuad Bot 2:9--18; Pignatti 1972 Flora Europaea 3:38--50; Lledo et al. 2005 Amer J Bot 92: 1189--1198; Smith 2005 FNANM 5:606--611