Plants not scapose; pubescent, trichomes sessile, medifixed, appressed, 2-rayed (malpighiaceous) or 3-5(-8)-rayed (stellate), rays (when 2) parallel to long axis of stems, leaves, sepals, and fruits. Stems erect or ascending [decumbent], unbranched or branched basally and/or distally. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal rosulate or not, petiolate, blade margins usually entire, dentate, sinuate-dentate, or denticulate, rarely pinnatifid or pinnatisect; cauline petiolate or sessile, blade (base cuneate or attenuate [auriculate]), margins entire, dentate, denticulate, dentate-sinuate, or repand. Racemes (densely flowered, E. pallasii bracteate basally). Fruiting pedicels erect, ascending, divaricate, reflexed, horizontal, or spreading, slender or stout (nearly as wide as fruit). Flowers: sepals oblong or linear, lateral pair saccate or not basally (pubescent); petals suborbicular, obovate, or spatulate, claw differentiated from blade (subequaling or longer than sepals, apex rounded [emarginate]); stamens (erect), tetradynamous; filaments not dilated basally; anthers oblong or linear; nectar glands (1, 2, or 4), distinct or confluent, subtending bases of stamens, median glands present or absent. Fruits usually sessile, rarely shortly stipitate (gynophore to 4 mm), usually linear or narrowly so [oblong], smooth or torulose, (keeled or not); valves each with obscure to prominent midvein, pubescent outside, usually glabrous inside; replum rounded; septum complete, (not veined); ovules [15-]20-120 per ovary; (style relatively short, rarely 1/2 as long as or subequaling fruit, often pubescent); stigma capitate. Seeds plump or flattened, winged, margined, or not winged, oblong, ovoid, obovate, or suborbicular; seed coat (minutely reticulate), mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent, rarely accumbent. x = (6) 7, 8 (9-17).
Sep erect or connivent, often saccate at base, the outer often minutely appendaged at apex; pet in our spp. yellow to orange, obovate or spatulate, abruptly or gradually narrowed to a long claw; short stamens subtended by a semicircular or annular gland; each pair of long stamens also subtended by a gland; anthers linear-oblong; ovary linear-cylindric, hairy; ovules numerous; style very short; stigma capitate, 2-lobed; frs elongate, ±4-angled, hairy, the valves with a prominent midnerve; seeds in one row; herbs with narrow, entire to pinnatifid lvs, ±pubescent with appressed, 2-5(-7)-pronged hairs. All our spp. are ±densely pubescent on the stem, lvs, sep, and fr, and even on the back of the pet, especially at the base of the blade. 200, N. Temp.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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