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Magnoliopsida
Lagerstroemia indica L.
EOL Text
Himalaya, Indo-China, China, widely cultivated.
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Source | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=110&taxon_id=200014643 |
Commercial use: Crape myrtle is valued as a landscape plant for its prolific summer flowers, heat and drought tolerance, and year-round landscape interest.
Crape myrtle is used for buffer strips around parking lots, for median strip plantings along highways, near decks, patios, as shade trees in small parking lots and around homes.
The crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia species) is native to China and Korea but has been so embraced by Southerners and has become a dominant landscape plant throughout the South. Breeding programs have produced superior forms with a wide range of plant sizes and habits, improved flowering, new flower colors, ornamental bark, ornamental foliage, pest resistance and increased vigor.
Lagerstroemia indica (Crape myrtle, Crepe myrtle) is a species in the genus Lagerstroemia in the family Lythraceae.
From China, Korea, Japan and Indian Subcontinent Lagerstroemia indica is an often multistemmed, deciduous tree with a wide spreading, flat topped, rounded, or even spike shaped open habit. Planted in full sun or under canopy, the tree is a popular nesting shrub for songbirds and wrens.
The bark is a prominent feature being smooth, pinkinsh-gray and mottled, shedding each year. Leaves also shed each winter, after spectacular color display, and bare branches re-leaf early in the spring; leaves are small, smooth -edged, circular or oval -shaped, and dark green changing to yellow and orange and red in autumn.
Flowers, on different trees, are white, pink, mauve, purple or carmine with crimped petals, in panicles up to 9cm.
Lagerstroemia indica is frost tolerant, prefers full sun and will grow to 6 metres with a spread of 6 metres.
Many hybrid cultivars have been developed between L. indica and L. faueri
References[edit]
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- Flora, The Gardeners Bible, ABC Publishing, Ultimo, NSW, Australia, 2005
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Source | http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lagerstroemia_indica&oldid=623855275 |
Shrubs or small trees, to 7 m tall. Branchlets slender, 4-angled or subalate, puberulous, glabrescent. Leaves sessile or with petiole to ca. 2 mm; leaf blade elliptic, oblong, obovate, or suborbicular, typically at least some suborbicular to obovate and mucronate, 2.5-7[-10] × 1.5-4 cm, papery to slightly leathery, glabrous or with slight indumentum on veins abaxially, lateral veins 3-7 pairs, base broadly cuneate to rounded, apex acute, obtuse with small mucro, or retuse. Panicles subpyramidal, 7-20 cm, puberulous, densely flowered. Floral tube 6-merous, 7-11 mm, smooth walled or obscurely to decidedly 6-ribbed, glabrous; sepals 3.5-5.5 mm, adaxially glabrous; annulus present; epicalyx absent. Petals purple, fuchsia, pink, or white, orbicular, 1.2-2 cm including claw 6-9 mm. Stamens 36-42, dimorphic. Ovary glabrous. Capsules ellipsoidal, 1-1.3 × 0.7-1.2 cm, 4-6-valved. Seeds including wing ca. 8 mm. Fl. Jun-Sep, fr. Sep-Nov. 2n = 48, 50.
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Source | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200014643 |
Many varieties of Crepe Myrtle, differing in flower colour, are commonly cultivated in plains and foothills as road-side and garden shrubs.
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Rights holder/Author | eFloras.org Copyright © Missouri Botanical Garden |
Source | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=5&taxon_id=200014643 |
Shrub, rarely arborescent, 2-3 (-6) m tall. Leaves variable, usually obovate, obtuse, 1-6.7 cm long, 6-35 mm broad. Panicles 6-15 cm long. Hypanthium 4-7 mm long, 7-10 mm broad, ± glabrous. Epicalyx lacking. Sepals 3.5-6 mm long, 2.5-5 mm broad, in fruit erect, herbaceous. Petals blade 1.6-2.5 cm long, 1.4-1.6 cm broad, claw 8-11 mm long. Capsule 10-12 mm in diameter.
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Source | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=5&taxon_id=200014643 |
1000-1500 m
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Source | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=110&taxon_id=200014643 |
Habit: Shrub
Lagerstroemia chinensis Lamarck; Murtughas indica (Linnaeus) Kuntze.
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Rights holder/Author | eFloras.org Copyright © Missouri Botanical Garden |
Source | http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200014643 |