BRASSICACEAE (CRUCIFERAE)

Annual to perennial herbs, rarely woody and shrubby. Leaves alternate, generally simple and exstipulate, basal often rosulate. Hairs usually simple or branched, appressed or absent. Inflorescence corymbose, racemose. Flowers usually bisexual, hypogynous, actinomorphic, pedicellate. Sepals 4, free, erect-closed to spreading-open, in 2 decussate pairs, inner sometimes saccate at base. Petals 4, alternating with sepals, free, entire, often equal and clawed, cruciform, usually yellow, white or liliac. Stamens 6, free, tetradynamous, outer pair (opposite to lateral sepals) short, inner 4 long, in 2 pairs (opposite to other 2 sepals); anthers bithecous, fertile, basifixed; 2,4 or 6 green fleshy glands present at the base of stamens. Ovary sessile, 2-celled; many ovules per loculus; style short or none; stigma capitates or 2-lobed. Fruits siliqua or silicuala, long or short, stalked, divided into 2 cells by a membranous partition (the replum) from which the 2 valves usually fall away at maturity, leaving the seeds on its edges; fruits indehiscent in Raphanus. Seeds small.