e-Key v3 - Cardamine
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Brassicaceae - Arabideae - Cardamine L.

Description :

  • Annual or perennial herbs, glabrous or with simple hairs
  • Leaves pinnate, trifoliolate or more rarely simple
  • Inflorescences terminal, ebracteate racemes
  • Sepals erect, spreading, not or hardly saccate
  • Petals obovate, rounded or emarginate, clawed, white, mauve, lilac or purple
  • Stamens 4 or 6; filaments without appendages
  • Nectaries at base of short filaments ring-shaped, closed or open on inner side; median nectaries small or absent
  • Fruit a linear or linear-lanceolate siliqua; valves flat; midrib immersed, obscure; valves opening suddenly and coiling spirally from base
  • Seeds flattened, broadly elliptic to oblong, in 1 row; cotyledons accumbent
  • x = 8 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • Cardamine L.
    • Linnaeus: 654 (1753)
    • Linnaeus: 295 (1754)
    • Sonder: 23 (1860)
    • Schulz: 280 (1903)
    • Schulz: 527 (1936)
    • Adamson: 422 (1950)
    • Phillips: 351 (1951)
    • Exell: 189 (1960)
    • Jones: 285 (1964)
    • Marais: 100 (1970)
    • Jonsell: 38 (1982)
    • Hilliard & Burtt: 275 (1982)
    • Marhold: 397 (1995)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global : Species 130, cosmopolitan
  • Southern Africa : Species 5: 2 natural: Cardamine africana L. (widespread) and C. trichocarpa Hochst. ex A.Rich. (restricted to KwaZulu-Natal), 3 introduced and naturalised: * C. flexuosa With. (KwaZulu-Natal), * C. hirsuta L. (widespread) and * C. impatiens L. (widespread)

References:

  • ADAMSON, R.S. 1950. Cruciferae Juss. In R.S. Adamson & T.M. Salter, Flora of the Cape Peninsula . Juta, Cape Town
  • EXELL, A.W. 1960. Cruciferae . Flora zambesiaca 1
  • HILLIARD, O.M. & BURTT, B.L. 1982. Notes on some plants of southern Africa. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 40
  • JONES, B.M.G. 1964. Cruciferae . Cardamine . Flora europaea 1
  • JONSELL, B. 1982. Cruciferae . Flora of tropical East Africa , Cruciferae
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum . Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum , edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
  • MARAIS, W. 1970. Cruciferae . Flora of southern Africa 13
  • MARHOLD, K. 1995. Taxonomy of the genus Cardamine L. ( Cruciferae ) in the Carpathians and Pannonia III. Folia Geobotanica & Phytotaxonomica, Praha 30
  • PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants, edn 2. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 25
  • SCHULZ, O.E. 1903. Monographie der Gattung Cardamine . Botanische Jahrbücher 32
  • SCHULZ, O.E. 1936. Cruciferae . Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien II,17b
  • SONDER, O.W. 1860. Crucifereae . Flora capensis 1