Plants not scapose; glabrous or sparsely to densely pilose (multicellular glandular tubercles or papillae present throughout, except flowers). Stems erect, often branched (many) distally. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate, sessile, or subsessile; basal not rosulate [rosulate], petiolate, blade margins entire, pinnatifid, or lyrate; cauline sessile (subsessile distally), blade (base cuneate, attenuate), margins dentate or entire. Racemes (corymbose or paniculate), considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels divaricate, slender. Flowers: sepals (yellowish green), oblong, (margins membranous), (glabrous, [pubescent or glandular]); petals obovate, (longer than sepals), claw distinct or absent, (apex obtuse to emarginate); stamens strongly tetradynamous; filaments (yellowish), not dilated basally [dilated]; anthers oblong [ovate], (apex obtuse); nectar glands confluent, subtending bases of stamens, median glands present. Fruits nutletlike, sessile, (readily detached from pedicel), oblong, ovoid, or subglobose, smooth, terete, 4-angled, or with 4 cristate wings, (1-4-loculed), (woody); valves (not distinct) not veined, glabrous; replum not distinct; septum subwoody or absent; ovules 2-4 per ovary; style obsolete or distinct, (slender, filiform or subconical); stigma capitate. Seeds plump [flattened], not winged, subglobose to ovoid [oblong]; seed coat (smooth), not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons spirolobal. x = 7.
Sep oblong, ascending; pet yellow (in ours), narrowly oblong, gradually narrowed to the base; short stamens surrounded at base by an annular gland; ovary narrowly ovoid, with 1-2 ovules per locule; fr hard, indehiscent, tapering above into the short style; seeds 1-4, the fr often constricted between them; septum indurate; coarse herbs with large, dandelion-like lvs. 6, Mediterranean, Asia.
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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