隐子芥属 yin zi jie shu

Herbs annual. Trichomes often a mixture of simple, forked, stellate, or malpighiaceous. Stems erect or ascending. Basal leaves subsessile, not rosulate, simple, entire. Cauline leaves sessile, cuneate and not auriculate at base, entire or denticulate. Racemes several flowered, ebracteate. Fruiting pedicels nearly as wide as fruit, ascending and subappressed to rachis or rarely divaricate. Sepals oblong, erect, pubescent, base of lateral pair not saccate. Petals white, longer than sepals; blade spatulate, apex obtuse or emarginate; claw obscurely differentiated from blade. Stamens 6, erect, tetradynamous; filaments dilated at base; anthers ovate or oblong, apiculate. Median glands absent; lateral ones annular. Ovules 3-7 per ovary. Fruit indehiscent siliques, cylindric, sessile, usually breaking into 1-seeded units; valves somewhat woody, veinless or obscurely veined, often with dense malpighiaceous trichomes sometimes mixed with larger, simple or stalked, 2-forked ones on tuberculate base, torulose; replum rounded; septum absent; style obsolete; stigma capitate, 2-lobed. Seeds uniseriate, wingless, narrowly oblong, plump; seed coat minutely reticulate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent.

Three species: C and SW Asia; one species in China.

Lower Taxon

• Cryptospora falcata Karelin & Kirilov