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- Reference
- Narr.Exped.Cent.Austral. 2:67 (1849)
- Name Status
- Not Current
Scientific Description
Common name. Native stocks. Family Brassicaceae.
Excluded from the flora of Western Australia although at some time considered to grow here.
Habit and leaf form. Shrubs, or herbs. Herbs annual. Leaves basal and cauline. Stem internodes solid. To 0.5 m high. Mesophytic, or xerophytic. Leaves small to medium-sized; alternate; spiral; ‘herbaceous’; petiolate (basal leaves), or subsessile to sessile (cauline leaves); non-sheathing; foetid, or without marked odour; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades dissected to entire; when dissected, sinuate to pinnatifid; pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves without stipules; without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present; glandular hairs absent; complex hairs present. Complex hairs stellate (or irregularly branched). Extra-floral nectaries absent.
Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite.
Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in corymbs, or in racemes. The terminal inflorescence unit racemose. Flowers pedicellate; ebracteate; ebracteolate; small to medium-sized; regular; 2 merous; cyclic. Floral receptacle with neither androphore nor gynophore. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present; of separate members. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 8; 3 -whorled (K 2+2, C 4). Calyx present; 4; 2 -whorled; polysepalous; decussate; regular. Corolla present; 4; 1 -whorled; alternating with the calyx; polypetalous; imbricate, or contorted; regular; white, or yellow, or pink, or purple to blue (lavender). Petals obovate; clawed. Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 6. Androecial members branched (in that the inner whorl of 4 is derived from only 2 primordia); free of the perianth; markedly unequal; free of one another; 2 -whorled (2+4). Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 6; tetradynamous; all more or less similar in shape; hypogynous, on receptacle. Filaments not appendiculate. Anthers basifixed; non-versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; unilocular to bilocular; tetrasporangiate; appendaged, or unappendaged. Pollen shed as single grains. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular. Locules secondarily divided by ‘false septa’. Gynoecium transverse. Ovary sessile. Gynoecium non-stylate, or stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1; 1 - lobed (capitate or rooflike); capitate. Placentation parietal. Ovules (1–)3–50 per locule; with ventral raphe; non-arillate; anatropous.
Fruit and seed features. Fruit 25–70 mm long; non-fleshy; dehiscent; a siliqua. Capsules valvular. Fruit 5–50 seeded (‘few to many’). Seeds 2–30 per locule. Seed rows per locule 2. Seeds scantily endospermic, or non-endospermic; mucous; plump, oval; small to medium sized; wingless. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2; incumbent. Embryo bent.
Physiology, biochemistry. Mustard-oils present.
Special features. Fruit body with no clear differentiation into valve and beak regions. Replum present and complete; broad. Fruit bilaterally compressed to terete. The inner (lateral) pair of sepals saccate basally for nectar storage (usually), or not noticeably saccate. Petals not peculiarly elongated as in Stenopetalum. Nectariferous glands lateral and median, or lateral only. Siliquae slightly moniliform, or not moniliform. Valves of the fruit neither winged nor keeled.
Etymology. From the Greek for "slimy, mucous"; refers to the mucus which exudes from the seeds when soaked.