SPECIES DESCRIPTION

                         FAMILY AND GENUS DESCRIPTIONS

CRUCIFERAE

General description:- Annual to perennial herbs, rarely small shrubs.

Leaves:- Alternate, exstipulate.

Flowers:- Usually hermaphrodite, radially symmetrical (actinomorphic), the sepals, petals and stamens inserted on the receptacle below and free from the ovary (hypogynous). Sepals 4, free, in 2 at right angles to each other (decussate) pairs. Petals 4, rarely absent, free, clawed, overlapping (imbricate) or contorted, alternating with the sepals. Stamens usually 6, rarely 4, 2 or 0, tetradynamous (an outer pair with short filaments, and 2 inner pairs, 1 posterior and 1 anterior, with long filaments); filaments sometimes winged or with a tooth-like appendage. Nectarial glands of various sizes, shapes, colours and dispositions around the base of the stamens and ovary. Ovary of 2 united carpels, (syncarpous), with 2 parietal placentas, usually 2-celled (bilocular) through the formation of a membranous false septum by the union of outgrowths of the placentas, sometimes transversely multi-celled (plurilocular). Stigma capitate to bilobed.

Fruit:- Usually a capsule splitting open to release the seeds (dehiscent) by 2 valves from below, called a siliqua when at least 3 times as long as wide or a silicula if less than 3 times as long as wide; sometimes indehiscent, breaking into 1-seeded portions or not; rarely transversely articulate with dehiscent and indehiscent segments; sometimes dividing at maturity into 1-seeded portions (lomentum).

There is great diversity in the form and structure of the fruit in this family, often affording an easy means of identification, especially in genera which possess a distinctive siliqua or silicula. The seeds are always inserted in 2 rows in each loculus, but where the diameter of the seed is approximately the same as that of the fruit they appear to be in 1 row, and are so described.

Many species in this family, especially among the annuals, are found in Europe principally or exclusively as weeds of cultivation or as ruderals.

ERUCA

General description:- Annuals or perennials.

Leaves:- Pinnatifid or pinnatisect.

Flowers:- Sepals erect, unequal, the inner somewhat saccate at the base; petals yellow, clawed.

Fruit:- A siliqua with a long beak; valves distinctly 1-veined. Seeds in 2 rows in each loculus, globose.

Key features:-
1) Fruit with 2 segments, the upper flat, leaf-like (foliaceous) or tongue-shaped (lingulate), the lower with 1 or 2 seeds.
2) Filaments free.
3) Fruit erect or erecto-patent (between spreading and erect), 12-35 mm.
4) Siliqua with a beak 5-12 mm, shorter than the rest of the siliqua; seeds in 2 rows in each loculus.