Cardamine L.

Herbs, annual, biennial or perennial; stems erect, diffuse or flaccid, simple or branched, glaucous, pubescent or with a few simple hairs. Leaves simple, ternate, pinnate or pinnatisect, alternate or rarely verticillate. Racemes usually many-flowered, ebracteate. Flowers white, pale-purple, mauve, pale-violet or pale-yellow; pedicels filiform, erect or upcurved. Sepals nearly equal at base, oblong or ovate; inner sepals somewhat pouched at base. Petals 4, clawed, obovate or subspathulate, rounded or emarginate, rarely absent. Stamens 4 - 6; filaments subulate, not broadened at base, erect; anthers oblong. Ovary cylindrical, 4 - 40-ovulate; ovules uniseriate, oval or orbicular; style often filiform; stigma simple, more or less bilobed. Fruits laterally compressed, narrow or broadly linear, tapering at both ends; valves rounded, with indistinct venation, dehiscing explosively and becoming coiled; style short. Seeds compressed, finely tuberculate, 1-seriate, few to many; cotyledons accumbent.

Cosmopolitan; about 150 species, 14 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves simple or cauline, sometimes 3-foliolate, not deeply lobed or pinnatisect

2

b. Leaves compound

3

2a. Leaves sessile, lanceolate, half-amplexicaul; flowers violet

13. Cardamine violacea

b. Leaves petioled, cordate or subcordate; flowers white

2. Cardamine circaeoldes

3a. Leaves trifoliolate or bifoliolate, irregularly lobed, minutely or deeply toothed

4

b. Leaves many-jugate, pinnatisect

6

4a. Plants robust, generally up to 100 cm high; leaflets acuminate at apex; flowers pink

10. Cardamine scoriarum

b. Plants not robust, usually up to 45 cm high; leaflets obtuse or acute at apex; flowers dull white or palelilac

5

5a. Flowers dull white or greenish yellow, 2 - 5 mm across

1. Cardamine africana

b. Flowers pale-lilac, ca 8 mm across

12. Cardamine trifoliolata

6a. Plants robust, usually 45 - 100 cm high

9. Cardamine macrophylla

b. Plants slender, stems up to 40 cm (rarely 60 cm) high

7

7a. Leaves auricled at base

8

b. Leaves not auricled at base

9

8a. Flowers white; sepals ca 1.5 mm long

7. Cardamine impatiens

b. Flowers lilac or purple; sepals 3 - 3.5 mm long

5. Cardamine griffithii

9a. Leaflets irregularly lobed or crenately toothed at margin

10

b. Leaflets entire or irregularly sinuate or lobed at margin

11

10a. Petals oblong, ca 2 mm long or sometimes absent

11. Cardamine trichocarpa

b. Petals obovate-cuneate, ca 4 mm long

14. Cardamine yunnanensis

11a. Flowers usually 7 - 13 mm across

8. Cardamine loxostemonoides

b. Flowers usually 3 - 6 mm across

12

12a. Stem flexuose, usually with several branches from below; leaflets 2 - 4 pairs

4. Cardamine flexuosa

b. Stem erect or ascending, usually not branched from below; leaflets 5 - 13 pairs

13

13a. Basal leaves many, densely rosetted, hairy on upper surface

6. Cardamine hirsuta

b. Basal leaves few, not rosetted, glabrous on upper surface

3. Cardamine elegantula

List of Lower Taxa