e-Key v<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1701775012821_9723920937875743" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>3 - *Descur<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1701775012821_8421133149167466" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>ainia
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Brassicaceae - Sisymbrieae - *Descurainia Webb & Berthel.

Description:

  • Mostly annual, branched herbs, with branched, stellate, glandular or simple hairs
  • Leaves 2- or 3-pinnatisect
  • Inflorescences racemose, many-flowered, ebracteate
  • Flowers small, inconspicuous
  • Sepals erect, not saccate
  • Petals yellowish, usually smaller than sepals
  • Stamens 6; filaments without appendages
  • Nectaries narrow, lateral ones horseshoe-shaped, united with median ones
  • Fruit a short, linear siliqua; valves rounded, 1-nerved, net-veined; style very short; stigma capitate
  • Seeds elliptic or oblong, in 1 or 2 rows, small; cotyledons incumbent
  • x = 7 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

  • *Descurainia Webb & Berthel.
    • Webb & Berthelot: 72 (1836)
    • Schulz: 649 (1936)
    • Ball: 266 (1964)
    • Marais: 117 (1970)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species ± 55, mostly North America, some from South America, Europe and Asia
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: *Descurainia sophia (L.) Webb ex Prantl, naturalised in arid areas, only few times recorded in Gauteng, Northern and Eastern Cape

References:

  • BALL, P.W. 1964. Cruciferae. Alyssum [and other genera]. Flora europaea 1
  • MARAIS, W. 1970. Cruciferae. Flora of southern Africa 13
  • SCHULZ, O.E. 1936. Cruciferae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien II,17b
  • WEBB, P.B. & BERTHELOT, S. 1836. Histoire naturelle des Îsles Canaries 3. Béthune, Paris