Farsetia Turra

Herbs or undershrubs, open with woody base, erect or spreading, much-branched, annual or perennial, hoary with stiff bipartite, appressed white hairs. Leaves linear- oblong, tapering to base, sessile. Racemes lax, ebracteate. Flowers small or large, pale yellow, orange or whitish; pedicels short. Sepals erect, linear-oblong, more or less equal at base. Petals oblong-linear, clawed, often crimpled along margins, rounded at apex, slightly longer to about twice as long as sepals. Stamens 6; filaments linear; anthers oblong-linear. Ovary oblong, 10 - 40-ovuled, hairy; style short and thick; stigma capitate. Fruits linear-oblong, erect, compressed, bilocular, nearly rounded at both ends, covered with bipartite appressed hairs; valves with distinct midvein, often slightly torulose; septum membranous. Seeds uniseriatc to biseriate, orbicular, winged.

S.W. Asia, Central and North America; about 10 species, 4 in India.

Literature. JAFRI, S. M. H. (1957) The genus Farsetia in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Notes R. Bot. Gard. Edinb. 22: 209 - 216.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Seeds uniseriate

2

b. Seeds biseriate

3

2a. Flowers 3 - 5 mm in diam.; sepals usually less than 5 mm (3 - 4 mm) long; petals slightly exceeding the sepals

1. Farsetia hamiltonii

b. Flowers 10 - 12 mm in diam.; sepals usually more than 5 mm (6 - 9 mm) long; petals much exceeding the sepals

2. Farsetia heliophila

3a. Leaves linear-oblong or linear, 3 - 40 x 2 - 8 mm, sessile; flowers 5 - 10 mm across; petals oblong-linear

3. Farsetia jacquemontii

b. Leaves lanceolate, 40 - 70 x 15 - 22 mm, petiolate; flowers 12 - 15 mm across; petals spathulate

4. Farsetia macrantha

List of Lower Taxa