臭荠属 xiu ji shu

Senebiera de Candolle.

Herbs annual, biennial, or perennial with woody caudex. Trichomes absent or simple. Stems prostrate or ascending, rarely erect. Basal leaves sometimes rosulate, 1-3-pinnatisect, rarely serrate. Cauline leaves petiolate or subsessile, entire, serrate, or pinnatisect. Racemes many flowered, ebracteate. Fruiting pedicels erect or divaricate. Sepals ovate, oblong, or elliptic, ascending or spreading, base of lateral pair not saccate. Petals white or violet, longer or shorter than sepals, sometimes vestigial or absent; blade obovate, oblong, oblanceolate-linear, or subulate, obtuse; claw usually absent. Stamens 6 and tetradynamous, sometimes 2 and median; filaments usually dilated at base; anthers ovate, obtuse. Nectar glands 2, 4, or 6, median ones present. Ovules 2 per ovary. Fruit indehiscent silicle, didymous, schizocarpic, reniform, cordate, or obcordate, angustiseptate, sessile, breaking into 2, 1-seeded, closed halves (mericarps); valves woody, obscurely to prominently veined, glabrous or hairy, keeled or rounded, reticulate, rugose, verrucose, tuberculate, or rarely smooth; replum rounded; septum reduced to a rim or absent; style obsolete or to 1 mm; stigma capitate, entire. Seeds wingless, oblong, reniform, ovoid, or globose, plump or sometimes flattened; seed coat minutely reticulate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent.

Ten species: Africa, SW Europe, South America; two species (introduced) in China.

The limits of Coronopus are artificial and the genus is polyphyletic; it should perhaps be united with Lepidium.