Erucastrum

Annuals or biennials [perennials, subshrubs]; not scapose; pubescent. Stems erect or ascending, unbranched or branched. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal rosulate or not, petiolate, blade margins dentate to lyrate-pinnatifid, [pinnatipartite]; cauline shortly petiolate or sessile, blade (base not auriculate), similar to basal. Racemes (corymbose, bracteate throughout or basally), greatly elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels ascending to divaricate [spreading], slender. Flowers: sepals erect, oblong [linear], lateral pair not saccate basally; petals yellow or white, obovate to oblanceolate or oblong, gradually attenuated to short claw, (apex rounded); stamens tetradynamous; filaments not dilated basally; anthers oblong or linear, (base sagittate, apex obtuse); nectar glands distinct, median glands present. Fruits siliques, dehiscent, subsessile, segments 2, linear, often torulose, subterete or 4-angled; (terminal segment stylelike, seedless); valves each with prominent midvein, glabrous; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules 10-60 per ovary; stigmas capitate, entire or 2-lobed. Seeds uniseriate, plump, not winged, elliptic [oblong, ovoid]; seed coat (usually reticulate), slightly mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons conduplicate. x = 7, 8, 9.

Sep erect to spreading, somewhat cucullate at the tip; pet yellow, spatulate; each pair of long stamens subtended by a short, pyramidal gland; a short gland between the ovary and each short stamen; ovary cylindric; ovules numerous; style very short; stigma capitate; fr elongate, 4-angled, conspicuously beaked, the valves sharply 1-nerved; seeds ovoid or oblong, in 1 row in each locule; herbs with pinnatifid lvs, the pubescence of simple hairs or none. 17, mainly Mediterranean.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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