Herbs, annual or biennial, occasionally short-lived perennial, shortly pubescent or glabrous, yellow lactiferous. Roots narrowly fusiform. Stems terete, few to many branched. Basal leaves many in a rosette, petiolate, pinnatilobate, pinnatipartite, or bipinnatifid; lobes distant, margin undulate or serrate. Cauline leaves alternate, sessile, pinnatifid or with irregular large thick teeth. Flowers terminal, solitary or in few-flowered cymes, ebracteate. Pedicel slender, usually glabrous, ebracteate. Sepals 2, ovate or broadly ovate, glabrous or shortly pubescent, apically acuminate to shortly horned, or spatulate. Petals 4, yellow or orange, obovate or suborbicular. Stamens many; filaments filiform; anthers oblong, 2-celled, longitudinally divided, basifixed. Ovary 1-loculed, 2-carpellate, terete or narrowly so, pubescent or tuberculate; styles very short; stigmas capitate. Capsule terete or linear, shortly pubescent or glabrous, 2-valvate, splitting from apex nearly to base. Seeds many, usually ovoid, small, tessellate, not carunculate.
Home