Flora of North America species comparison

erect or decumbent, branched basally [and distally] (leafy or not).

basal and sometimes cauline;

petiolate;

basal not rosulate [rosulate], blade margins sinuate-dentate, [pinnatifid, or pinnatisect, rarely entire];

cauline absent or shortly petiolate, blade (base not auriculate) margins often entire.

(corymbose [or, rarely, flowers solitary on long pedicels from axils of rosettes], several-flowered), slightly or considerably elongated in fruit.

sepals linear [ovate, or oblong];

petals usually purple or lavender [yellow], rarely white, (much longer than sepals), oblanceolate [broadly obovate or obcordate], claw strongly differentiated from blade, (apex obtuse [emarginate]);

stamens strongly tetradynamous;

filaments not dilated basally;

anthers narrowly oblong [linear], (apex obtuse);

nectar glands (2 or 4), lateral, intrastaminal or each side of lateral stamen.

divaricate, stout [slender] (nearly as thick as fruit).

sessile, segments 2, linear, slightly [strongly] torulose or submoniliform, terete; (segments breaking into 1-seeded units, lomentaceous with thick, corky, or woody wall);

valves usually glandular, rarely eglandular;

replum flattened, (persistent after segments fall off);

septum becoming corky, splitting at middle;

ovules 5–30 per ovary; (style beaklike);

stigma conical, 2-lobed (lobes decurrent, strongly connivent).

flattened, not winged, oblong;

seed coat not mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons accumbent.

= 7.