Home
Herbs annual, biennial, or perennial, usually of wet or aquatic habitats. Trichomes absent or simple. Stems erect or prostrate, simple or branched, leafy. Basal leaves petiolate, rosulate or not, simple, entire, dentate, sinuate, lyrate, pectinate, or 1-3-pinnatisect. Cauline leaves petiolate or sessile, cuneate, attenuate, auriculate, or sagittate at base, entire, dentate, pinnatifid, or pinnatisect. Racemes ebracteate or rarely bracteate throughout, elongated in fruit. Sepals ovate or oblong, erect or spreading, base of lateral pair not saccate or rarely saccate, margin often membranous. Petals yellow, sometimes white or pink, rarely vestigial or absent; blade obovate, spatulate, oblong, or oblanceolate, apex obtuse or emarginate; claw sometimes distinct, often shorter than sepals. Stamens 6 and tetradynamous, rarely 4 and equal in length; anthers ovate or oblong, obtuse or rarely apiculate at apex. Nectar glands confluent, often subtending bases of all stamens; median glands narrow; lateral glands semiannular and intrastaminal, or annular. Ovules 10-300 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent siliques or silicles, linear, oblong, ovoid, ellipsoid, or globose, terete or slightly latiseptate, sessile or rarely shortly stipitate; valves 2(or 3-6), papery or leathery, veinless or obscurely veined, smooth or torulose; replum rounded; septum complete or rarely perforated, membranous, translucent, veinless; style obsolete or distinct; stigma capitate, entire or slightly 2-lobed. Seeds biseriate or rarely uniseriate, wingless or rarely winged, oblong, ovoid, or ellipsoid, plump; seed coat reticulate, colliculate, rugose, tuberculate, or foveolate, mucilaginous or not when wetted; cotyledons accumbent.
Annual to perennial small to rather tall herbs with a taproot, sometimes also with root-runners or adventive roots from stem-nodes, practically glabrous to pubescent with unicellular simple pointed hairs. Stems prostrate to erect, usually much branched. Leaves membranous, usually pinnatifid to pinnate, often auriculate. Racemes terminal, less often axillary, with or without bracts, nearly corymbose, with numerous rather small to small flowers, in fruit cylindrical and lax. Sepals greenish, elliptic, not saccate, spreading. Petals yellow or white, equalling or up to ± twice as long as the sepals. Stamens 6, distinctly tetradynamous, with linear filaments; anthers ovate to oblong, yellow, blunt. Nectarial tissue ± surrounding the lateral filament-bases, usually also extending outside the median ones but sometimes lacking there (as in species 5 and 6). Ovary spheroid to narrowly cylindrical, with numerous ovules. Fruits terete, very variable in shape (globose to narrowly linear), without or rarely with a very short gynophore, usually with a short but distinct style and flat to slightly bifid stigma, dehiscent by 2 valves, with very fine or no observable midnerve. Seeds many to numerous, not mucilaginous, finely and variously sculptured, yellowish to dark brown, ellipsoid to spheroid, wingless, 0.5–1.5 mm. across.
Annual to perennial, small to rather tall herbs with a taproot, sometimes also with root-runners or adventive roots from the stem-nodes, practically glabrous to pubescent with simple, pointed hairs. Stems prostrate to erect, usually much branched. Leaves membranous, usually pinnatifid to pinnate, often auriculate. Racemes terminal, less often axillary, with or without bracts, nearly corymbose, with numerous, rather small to small flowers, in fruit cylindrical and loose. Sepals greenish, elliptic, not saccate, spreading. Petals yellow or white, equalling or up to ± twice as long as the sepals. Stamens 6, distinctly tetradynamous, with usually linear filaments; anthers ovate to oblong, yellow, blunt. Nectarial tissue ± surrounding the lateral filament bases, usually also extending outside the median ones but sometimes lacking there. Ovary spheroid to narrowly cylindrical, with numerous ovules. Fruits terete, very variable in shape (globose to narrowly linear), without or rarely with a very short gynophore, usually with a short but distinct style and flat to slightly bifid stigma, dehiscent by 2 valves with or without very fine midnerve. Seeds many to numerous, not mucilaginous, finely and variously sculptured, yellowish to dark brown, ellipsoid to spheroid, wingless, 0.5-1.5 mm diameter.
Sep ascending; pet yellow or white, spatulate to obovate, small, often scarcely exceeding the sep, gradually narrowed to the claw; short stamens flanked at base by a pair of minute glands, or these confluent into an annular gland; long stamens separated by a short conic gland; ovary cylindric; style very short; stigma capitate or shortly 2-lobed; ovules numerous; fr subterete, subglobose to cylindric, with short style and persistent stigma, the valves thin, with obscure midnerve; seeds numerous, minute, in most spp. in 2 rows in each locule; annual to perennial herbs with toothed to pinnatifid lvs, the pubescence of simple hairs or none. 80, cosmop.
Annual, biennial or perennial rhizomatous trailing or taprooted herbs. Hairs simple, or 0. Stems prostrate to erect, leafy. Lvs simple to pinnate; margins of lobes entire or crenate or dentate. Racemes ebracteate. Sepals erecto-patent, saccate or not. Petals yellow or white. Stamens 6, without appendages. Nectaries 6, 4 lateral and 2 median, variable in form and degree of fusion. Style very short; stigma capitate or slightly 2-lobed. Fr. a globose to ovoid silicle or oblong to linear silique, often curved, dehiscent; valves veinless or 1-veined at least below; beak 0. Seeds oblong or ovoid, winged or not winged, in 1-2 rows per locule.
Annual or perennial herbs, glabrous or pubescent with simple trichomes; leaves sessile or petioled, simple to deeply lobed; inflorescence racemose, ebracteate, term-inating all the upper branches; flowers small, petals yellow or rarely white; infructescence usually somewhat elongated; siliques short, rarely up to 4 times longer than broad, usually much shorter, terete, plump, valves nerveless; style short, stigma unexpanded.
Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, some aquatic. Sepals dimorphic; inner pair saccate. Petals clawed. Stamens 4 or 6. Nectariferous glands 6, medians present, form various. Stigma bilobed to capitate. Siliqua dehiscent, beakless; valves convex, the midvein scarcely or not visible. Seeds in 1 or 2 rows per locule. Radicle accumbent.
Stamens 6; style 2-lobed; fr. a silicle or short silique; valves convex, 1-nerved or nerve obsolete. Seeds us. ∞, turgid, in 2 rows, sts irregularly so; cots accumbent. Aquatic to terrestrial annual to short-lived perennial herbs of c. 50 spp., mainly of temperate regions.
Annual, biennial or perennial herbs sometimes almost acaulescent, often aquatic or semi-aquatic, glabrous or with simple hairs.
Flowers yellow, white or pinkish in terminal or axillary racemes or panicles or sometimes solitary and axillary.
Seeds 1–2-seriate (2-seriate in our area) lenticular to subspherical; cotyledons accumbent.
Leaves alternate, entire or variously pinnatifid or pinnatisect or pinnate.
Petals usually 4, occasionally reduced in number or absent.
Stamens usually 6, tetradynamous, occasionally fewer.
Fruit cylindric to ellipsoid.
