Rorippa Scop.

Herbs, annual or perennial erect branching, glabrous or with simple hairs; taproot slender. Leaves simple to deeply lyrate-pinnate, glabrous or sparsely pilose. Flowers in bracteate or ebracteate racemes, yellow. Sepals scarcely saccate at base; inner sepals pouched at base. Petals yellow, as long as or longer than sepals or absent. Stamens 6 or sometimes 4. Ovary oblong to suborbicular, many-ovuled; stigma slightly bilobed. Fruits linear, cylindrical or ellipsoid, bilocular, dehiscent; valves with indistinct midrib; style short; stigma rounded. Seeds suborbicular, few to numerous, more or less biseriate, reddish-brown.

Mostly in northern temperate zone; about 90 species, 7 in India.

Notes. Sometimes considered congeneric with Nasturtium R. Br. In that case the correct name for the combined genus would be Rorippa Scop.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Mature fruits up to 10 mm long, 2 - 2.5 mm broad

6. Rorippa palustris

b. Mature fruits usually 10 - 35 mm long, 1 - 1.5 mm broad

2

2a. Flowers bracteate

1. Rorippa benghalensis

b. Flowers usually ebracteate

3

3a. Petals much longer than sepals

7. Rorippa sylvestris

b. Petals more or less equalling the sepals or absent

4

4a. Mature fruits 1 - 2 cm long

5

b. Mature fruits 2.5 - 3.5 cm long

6

5a. Pedicels ca 3 mm long in fruit

4. Rorippa madagascariensis

b. Pedicels 5 - 7 mm long in fruit

3. Rorippa indica

6a. Petals always present

5. Rorippa montana

b. Petals usually absent

2. Rorippa dubia

List of Lower Taxa