Habit: Perennial herb, glabrous, glaucous or not; sap colorless.
Leaf: basal, deeply dissected, segments often lobed.
Inflorescence: raceme, panicle, or 1-flowered.
Flower: biradial, nodding to erect; sepals 2, shed after flower; petals 4, white or cream to pale yellow to pink or pink-tipped, persistent or not, outer 2 free, lanceolate, alike, both pouched at base, inner 2 adherent at tips, oblanceolate, +- crested on back; stamens 6, +- fused in 2 sets opposite outer petals; ovary cylindric to long-conic, placentas 2, style 1, stigma lobes 2.
Fruit: oblong, fusiform to ovate, or conic, dehiscent from tip.
Seed: few, 1--2 mm, oblong to reniform, smooth to finely netted, black; fleshy appendage present.
Species In Genus: 18 species: North America, Asia; some ornamental.
Etymology: (Greek: twice spurred, from outer petals)
Note: Other species in TJM (1993) moved to
Ehrendorferia (Liden et al. 1997 Plant Syst Evol 206:411--420).
Jepson eFlora Author: Gary L. Hannan
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Dicentra
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