Herbs or rarely shrubs with pungent watery juice, terrestrial or aquatic, glabrous or
with simple or variously branched unicellular trichomes or rarely with multicellular,
glandular trichomes. Leaves alternate or sometimes confined to a basal rosette, exstipulate, simple or very rarely pinnate or palmate, rarely reduced to scales. Inflorescence
terminal or axillary, racemose, corymbose or paniculate, rarely flowers solitary, usually
ebracteate. Flowers bisexual, hypogynous, mostly actinomorphic, rarely zygomorphic.
Sepals 4, usually free, in decussate pairs, erect or spreading, usually caducous, the
laterals often saccate at base. Petals 4, decussate, cruciform, alternating with the sepals,
usually clawed, entire or rarely lobed, rarely absent. Stamens 6, sometimes 2, 4 or rarely
more than 6, tetradynamous in 2 rows or 2-dynamous, rarely all of equal length; filaments
filiform, sometimes winged or appendaged at base, free or the median pair connate;
anthers mostly sagittate, 2 (-1)-loculed, longitudinally dehiscent. Nectar glands receptacular, subtending or surrounding the bases of some or all filaments. Ovary superior,
bicarpellate, syncarpous, 2-locular by a false septum connecting the 2-parietal placentae;
style distinct, persistent or obsolete; stigma entire or 2-lobed, capitate or discoid; ovules
1-many, anatropous or campylotropous. Fruit a dry bivalvately dehiscent siliqua, schizocarp or indehiscent and becoming lomentaceous or achene-like or samaroid, usually
beakless or rarely with seedless or 1-few-seeded beak; replum persistent; septum
complete or incomplete, usually membranaceous. Seeds uniseriate or biseriate, usually
wingless, often mucilaginous when wet; endosperm absent; embryo large, usually strongly curved or folded; germination epigeal.
Throughout the world, primarily in temperate regions; ca 340 genera and 3350
species, 64 genera and 207 species in India.
Literature.
AL-SHEHBAZ, ISHAN A. (1984) The tribes of Cruciferae (Brassicaceae) in South-eastern United States. J. Arn. Arb. 65: 343 - 374. JAFRI, S.M.H.(1973) Brassicaceae. In: Nasir & Ali,
fl. W. Pakistan 55: 1 - 308.
JONSELL, B.(1988) Cruciferae. In: Fl. Males. I, 10: 541 - 560, ff. 1 - 5. SARKAR, A. K. & J. N. MITRA (1969) The order Rhoedales in Eastern India, I. Cruciferae. Bull. Bot.
Soc. Bengal 23: 93 - 107. SCHULZ, O. E. (1919) Cruciferae-Brassiceae. Pars prima. In: Engler, A.
Pflanzenreich 70 (IV - 105): 1 - 290. SCHULZ, O. E.
(1923) Cruciferae-Brassiceae. Parssccunda. In: Engler,
A., l. c. 84: 1 - 100. SCHULZ, O.E.
(1927) Beitrage zur Kenntnis der Cruciferen des nordwestlichen
Himalayan Gebriges. Notizbl. 9: l057 - 1095. SCHULZ, O. E.
(1936) Brassicaceae in Engler & Prantl, Nat. Pfianzenfam., ed. 2t 17b: 227 - 658.
KEY TO THE TRIBES
1a. Fruits beaked, beak one or few-seeded; sometimes transversely jointed; cotyledons conduplicate
