Common Name: MUSTARD FAMILY
Habit: Annual to shrub; sap pungent, watery. Leaf: generally simple, alternate; generally both basal, cauline; stipules 0. Inflorescence: generally raceme, generally not bracted. Flower: bisexual, generally radial; sepals 4, generally free; petals (0)4, forming a cross, generally white or yellow to purple; stamens generally 6 (2 or 4), 4 long, 2 short (3 pairs of unequal length); ovary 1, superior, generally 2-chambered with septum connecting 2 parietal placentas; style 1, stigma entire or 2-lobed. Fruit: capsule, generally 2-valved, "silique" (length >= 3 × width) or "silicle" (length < 3 × width), dehiscent by 2 valves or indehiscent, cylindric or flat parallel or perpendicular to septum, segmented or not. Seed: 1--many, in 1 or 2 rows per chamber, winged or wingless; embryo strongly curved.
Genera In Family: +- 330 genera, 3780 species: worldwide, especially temperate. Note: Highest diversity in Mediterranean area, mountains of southwestern Asia, adjacent central Asia, western North America; some Brassica species are oil or vegetable crops; Arabidopsis thaliana used in experimental molecular biology; many species are ornamentals, weeds. Aurinia saxatilis (L.) Desvaux in cultivation only. Aubrieta occasional waif in central NCoR, Carrichtera annua (L.) DC. in SCo, Iberis sempervirens L., Iberis umbellata L. in PR, Teesdalia coronopifolia (Bergeret) Thell., Teesdalia nudicaulis (L.) W.T. Aiton in southern NCoRO, CCo. Cardaria, Coronopus moved to Lepidium; Caulostramina to Hesperidanthus; Guillenia to Caulanthus; Heterodraba to Athysanus; California taxa of Lesquerella to Physaria; Malcolmia africana to Strigosella.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: YELLOW CRESS
Habit: Annual to perennial herb, occasionally with caudex or rhizome; hairs simple or 0. Stem: prostrate to erect, branched or not, leafy. Leaf: basal rosetted or not, simple, entire or dentate to 1--3-pinnately divided; cauline petioled or sessile, generally lobed to sagittate at base, entire to dentate or pinnately lobed. Inflorescence: elongated or congested; bracts 0 [rarely throughout]. Flower: sepals erect to spreading, base not sac-like, generally deciduous (persistent); petals present (vestigial or 0), yellow [white or pink], generally not clawed. Fruit: silique, linear or narrowly oblong, or silicle, spheric to ovoid or broadly oblong; dehiscent, unsegmented; stigma entire or +- 2-lobed. Seed: 10--300, 1(2) row(s) per chamber, generally wingless.
Etymology: (Latinized Old Saxon: for these or perhaps other crucifers) Note: Other taxa in TJM (1993) moved to Nasturtium.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz
Reference: Al-Shehbaz & Price 1998 Novon 8:124--126
Unabridged Reference: Stuckey 1972 Sida 4:277--340