Herbs, annual or perennial, erect or ascending, decumbent, or straggling, sometimes scandent, glabrous, often glaucous, containing watery sap; roots often tuberous.
Leaves usually alternate, radical or upper ones sometimes opposite or subopposite,
exstipulate; radical leaves in rosettes, rarely simple or pinnate, 1 -
3 pinnatisect or 1 -
3
ternatisect; cauline leaves much divided or dissected. Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic,
hypogynous, generally pedicellate and bracteate, usually in terminal leaf-opposed
racemes or spikes or in dichasial cymes (Hypecoum) or corymbs (Dicentra). Sepals 2,
free, small, scarious, scale-like, caducous. Petals 4, erect, imbricate, biseriate, coherent
in dimorphic pairs; outer pair larger, convex or apically cucullate, one or both saccate
or spurred at base, often crested outside; inner pair smaller, narrower, crested outside,
sometimes apically connate and hooded over stigma; petal-spur enclosing a nectarife-rous gland. Stamens 4, free and opposite to petal or 6, diadelphous, connate in 2 bundles
(phalanges) opposite to outer petals with filaments connate almost from base to top;
anthers small, linear, bilocular or dimorphic with central anther of each bundle 2-loculed
and two lateral ones 1-loculed, covering stigma. Ovary superior, 1-loculed with 2 carpels;
ovules 1-many on 2 parietal placentae, bitegmic, crassinucellar, anatropous or campylotropous; style 1, slender; stigmas 2, apical, capitate or flattened with 2,4 or 8 stigmatic
surfaces. Fruits usually capsular, 2-valved, often with transverse septa (replum), ellipsoid or linear, valvately dehiscing or breaking into 1-seeded indehiscent segments or a
1-seeded indehiscent nutlet. Seeds 1-many, sometimes with arillate raphe, attached to
style, reniform, orbicular, black or grey, shiny; embryo small, linear, straight or curved;
cotyledons twice as wide as radicle; endosperm copious.
Temperate, alpine and warm regions of northern hemisphere and highlands of S.
Africa and Asia; ca 16 genera and 450 species, 4 genera and 65 species in India.
Literature.
JAFRI, S. M. H. (1974) Fumariaceae. In: Nasir, E. & S.I. Ali (cd.) Fl. W. Pakistan 73: 1 - 43. RYDBERG, M. (1960) A morphological study of the Fumariaceae and the taxonomic
significance of the characters examined. Act. Hort. Berg. 19: 121 - 248, tt. 1 - 12. WENDELBO, P. (1974) Fumariaceae. In: K.H. Rechinger (ed.) Flora Iranica 110; 1 - 32, tt. 1 - 22.
Notes. Hypecoum is included in Fumariaceac following the delimitation of the
families as adopted by Cronquist (1981).
KEY TO THE GENERA
1a. Petals not spurred or gibbous; stamens 4, free; fruit breaking into 1-seeded indehiscent segments
b. Petals one or both outer ones gibbous or spurred at base; stamens 6, united in two bundles of 3 each; fruit a dehiscent capsule not breaking into 1-seeded segments or a 1-seeded indehiscent nutlet
2
2a. Herbs climbing extensively; leaves often tendrillar; outer petals both gibbous at base
