75. Lyrocarpa Hooker & Harvey, London J. Bot. 4: 76, plate 4. 1845.
[Greek lyra, lyre, and karpos, fruit, alluding to fruit shape]
Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz
Subshrubs [annuals]; (caudex woody); not scapose; pubescent [glabrate], trichomes minutely stalked or sessile, dendritic [rarely few-rayed]. Stems erect to decumbent, usually branched distally. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate; basal not rosulate, caducous; cauline blade (base not auriculate), margins usually pinnatisect, pinnatifid, or dentate, rarely entire, (canescent to sparsely pubescent). Racemes (corymbose, several-flowered, lax), considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels divaricate, ascending, or reflexed, slender. Flowers: sepals erect, (connivent), linear to oblong-linear, lateral pair saccate basally, (often densely pubescent); petals yellowish or yellow-green to brown, brownish purple, or salmon, linear or linear-oblanceolate [spatulate], (sometimes twisted with age, considerably longer than sepals), claw well-differentiated from blade, (equal to or longer than sepal, apex acute or acuminate [obtuse]); stamens (erect), strongly tetradynamous; filaments not dilated basally; anthers linear, (apiculate); nectar glands lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen. Fruits silicles or siliques, sessile, not torulose, obcordiform to panduriform, strongly angustiseptate; valves strongly keeled, pubescent or glabrate; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules 6-16[-20] per ovary; style obsolete or distinct, (short); stigma capitate, prominently 2-lobed (lobes spreading). Seeds uniseriate, flattened, not winged, orbicular [broadly ovate]; seed coat mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons accumbent. x = 10.
Species 3 (1 in the flora): sw United States, nw Mexico.
SELECTED REFERENCE Rollins, R. C. 1941b. A revision of Lyrocarpa. Contr. Dudley Herb. 3: 169-173.
