Dilophia salsa Illustration Credit: Shaukat & Azmat

Perennial, often small herbs, glabrous or subhairy with simple hairs, branched mostly from the base, erect or suberect. Leaves spathulate or linear, entire or sinuate-dentate, fleshy; basal leaves densely rosulate; cauline often involucrate below the inflorescence. Racemes condensed, many flowered, subumbellate or corymbose. Flowers small, white; pedicel short, slightly thickened in fruit. Sepals spreading, not saccate at base, often somewhat persistent. Petals spathulate, longer than sepals, apex ± retuse. Stamens 6; filaments linear; anthers short, suborbicular. Lateral nectar glands in pairs, semilunar with equally long, curved processes emitting from the bases; middle gland absent. Ovary ovate or subquadrate, 4-10-ovuled; stigma sessile, truncate or sub-bilobed, broad. Siliculae short, ± obcordate, usually bilocular, dehiscent, laterally flattened; valves gibbous at the back, usually with double crest (wings), glabrous; septum often incomplete, seeds small, biseriate, oblong, brown; radicle incumbent.

About 5 species in C. Asia and Himalayas; only 1 in our area.

Lower Taxon

• Dilophia salsa Thomson