Flora of North America species comparison

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Tropidocarpum

tropidocarpum
Habit Annuals; not scapose; pubescent or glabrous, trichomes simple, these mixed with smaller, short-stalked, Y-shaped, forked ones, rarely rays branched.
Stems

(usually several from base, rarely simple), usually ascending, decumbent, or prostrate, rarely erect, unbranched or branched [basally] distally, (slender).
Leaves

basal and cauline;

petiolate or sessile;

basal (withered by fruiting), not rosulate, petiolate, blade margins pinnatifid or pinnatisect;

cauline sessile or subsessile, blade margins pinnatifid.
Racemes

(several-flowered, bracteate throughout), considerably elongated in fruit.
Flowers

sepals erect to ascending, oblong, (glabrous or pubescent);

petals yellow, sometimes with purple tinge, oblanceolate, obovate, or spatulate, (slightly longer than sepals), claw undifferentiated from blade;

stamens slightly tetradynamous;

filaments sometimes slightly dilated basally;

anthers ovate, (apex obtuse);

nectar glands confluent, subtending bases of stamens.
Fruiting pedicels

erect, ascending, or divaricate, slender.
Fruits

siliques or silicles, sessile, linear, oblong, or obdeltoid, smooth, strongly angustiseptate;

valves [(2 or) 4 in T. capparideum, keeled], not veined, (thin-leathery throughout, or distally subwoody or thick-leathery and tuberculate-rugose), pubescent;

replum rounded;

septum complete or absent;

ovules 4–70 per ovary;

style distinct, (slender);

stigma capitate.
Seeds

uniseriate or (in 4-valved fruits) 4-seriate, not winged, oblong;

seed coat (reticulate), mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons incumbent.
x

= 8.

Tropidocarpum
Distribution
from FNA
CA; c Mexico; South America (c Chile)
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 4 (3 in the flora).

Tropidocarpum lanatum (Barnéoud) Al-Shehbaz & R. A. Price is known from central Chile.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Fruits obdeltoid, valves thick-leathery and tuberculate-rugose distally, puberulent, trichomes antrorse; ovules 4-8 per ovary.
T. californicum
1. Fruits linear or oblong, valves thin-leathery and smooth distally, usually pubescent or puberulent, rarely glabrescent, trichomes retrorse; ovules 25-70 per ovary
→ 2
2. Fruits narrowly linear, (25-)30-60(-70) × 1.5-2(-3) mm, length 13-46 times width; valves 2.
T. gracile
2. Fruits oblong, (5-)9-20 × (3-)4-5 mm, length (1.6-)2.8-5 times width; valves (2 or) 4.
T. capparideum
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 531. Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Descurainieae
Subordinate taxa
T. californicum, T. capparideum, T. gracile
Synonyms Agallis, Twisselmannia
Name authority Hooker: Icon. Pl. 1: plate 43. (1836)
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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