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: BLADDERPOD
Habit: Perennial herb with caudex (annual or biennial); hairs stellate, +- sessile. Stem: erect to decumbent or prostrate, simple or branched distally. Leaf: basal generally rosetted, simple, entire to wavy or dentate (pinnately lobed); cauline petioled or sessile, entire to wavy or dentate, base not lobed. Flower: sepals oblong to ovate, erect or spreading, sac-like at base; petals yellow (white or +- purple), widely ovate to spoon-shaped, clawed or not. Fruit: silicle, dehiscent, spheric to ovoid, ellipsoid, oblong, or spectacle-shaped, inflated and bladdery or not, unsegmented, generally not flattened (flattened); stigma entire. Seed: 4--28(40), in 2 rows, wingless (narrowly winged).
Etymology: (Greek: bladder, from inflated fruit)
eFlora Treatment Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz
Reference: Al-Shehbaz & O'Kane 2002 Novon 12:319--329
Unabridged Reference: Rollins & Shaw 1973 Harvard Univ Press:1--228