Flora of North America species comparison

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Dimorphocarpa

spectacle-pod
Habit Annuals, biennials, or, rarely, perennials; not scapose; densely pubescent throughout, trichomes usually subsessile and stellate, mixed with minutely stalked, dendritic ones, rarely unbranched.
Stems

erect [ascending], unbranched or branched proximally, branched distally.
Leaves

basal and cauline;

petiolate or sessile;

basal not rosulate, petiolate, blade margins dentate, pinnatifid, or lobed;

cauline sessile, subsessile, or shortly petiolate, blade (base not auriculate), margins entire or lobed.
Racemes

(corymbose), considerably elongated in fruit.
Flowers

sepals widely spreading to reflexed, oblong, (equal), lateral pair not saccate basally;

petals (spreading), white or lavender, obovate (longer than sepals), claw well-differentiated from blade, (apex rounded);

stamens (somewhat spreading), tetradynamous;

filaments not dilated basally;

anthers oblong [sagittate];

nectar glands distinct, lateral and median present; (gynophore to 0.5 mm).
Fruiting pedicels

divaricate, sometimes ascending or slightly reflexed, slender.
Fruits

silicles, subsessile, breaking into two 1-seeded units at maturity, didymous, suborbicular, or broader than long, winged, strongly angustiseptate;

valves keeled, enclosing seeds when falling off, not winged, narrowly winged, or margined, indurated around margin, glabrous or pubescent;

replum concealed by valve margin;

septum complete (ca. 0.1 mm wide);

ovules 2 per ovary;

style relatively short or obsolete, (terete or flattened);

stigma conical, decurrently 2-lobed (appearing entire).
Seeds

aseriate, strongly flattened, not winged, broadly oblong to suborbicular;

seed coat (smooth), not mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons accumbent to obliquely incumbent.
x

= 9.

Dimorphocarpa
Distribution
from USDA
sw United States; n Mexico
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 4 (3 in the flora).

Dimorphocarpa membranacea (Payson) Rollins is known from northern Mexico (San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Fruit valves (7-)8-10 mm; petals (7-)8-10(-12) mm, claws not expanded basally; distal cauline leaves sessile, blades usually ovate to narrowly oblong, rarely lanceolate, bases obtuse to truncate.
D. candicans
1. Fruit valves 4-5.5(-6.5) mm; petals (3.5-)4-7(-8) mm, claws expanded basally; distal cauline leaves shortly petiolate or subsessile, blades linear to lanceolate, bases cuneate
→ 2
2. Distal cauline blades: margins pinnately lobed; fruit valves nearly as long as wide, rounded apically.
D. pinnatifida
2. Distal cauline blades: margins usually entire, rarely dentate; fruit valves often longer than wide, truncate apically.
D. wislizeni
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 604. Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Physarieae
Subordinate taxa
D. candicans, D. pinnatifida, D. wislizeni
Name authority Rollins: Publ. Bussey Inst. Harvard Univ. 1979: 20, plates 3, 4. (1979)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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