322 CAPPARIDACEAE 



Family 53. CAPPARIDACEAE. 

 Caper Family. 



Herbs, shrubs or trees with pungent or acrid watery juice, simple or palmately 

 compound alternate leaves and axillary or terminal, solitary or racemose, mostly 

 regular and perfect flowers. Sepals 4—8, distinct or united below. Petals 4 or rarely 

 none, sessile or clawed. Stamens 6 to many, inserted on the receptacle ; anthers 

 oblong, longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary sessile or stipitate, 1-2-celled ; ovules many, 

 borne on parietal placentae. Fruit a capsule or berry. Seeds generally reniform; 

 endosperm none; cotyledons usually coiled. 



A family of about 40 genera and 450 species, mostly of warm-temperate and tropical regions. 



Stamens 4-6; stipe elongated in fruit. 

 Fruit several- to many-seeded. 



Herbs; sepals distinct or nearly so. 



Pod oblong or linear; petals generally clawed. 1. Cleome. 



Pod rhomboid, broader than long; petals sessile. 2. Cleotnella. 



Shrubs; calyx 4-cleft, persistent. 3. lsomeris. 



Fruit didymous, 2-celled, the cells separating as 1 -seeded nutlets. 



Styles filiform; nutlets open at the scar; racemes elongated, terminal. 4. Wislisenia. 



Styles subulate, spinescent; nutlets closed at the scar; racemes short, axillary. 5. Oxystylis. 



Stamens more than 6; stipe none or very short. 6. Polanisia. 



1. CLEOME L. Sp. PI. 671. 1753. 



Herbs or some tropical species shrubs or rarely trees. Leaves simple or usually digi- 

 tately 3-5-foliolate. Sepals 4, distinct or united at base, often persistent. Petals cruciate, 

 entire, more or less clawed. Stamens 6, rarely 4. Ovary stipitate, with a gland at the 

 base. Capsule pod-like, linear or oblong, long-stipitate, many-seeded. [Name of uncer- 

 tain derivation, early applied to some mustard-like plant.] 



About 75 species, mainly of tropical America and Africa. Type species, Cleome gynandra L. 



Pods elongate-linear, glabrous. 



Stamens much exceeding the petals, calyx deeply 4-parted. 



Flowers pink or white, leaves 3-foliolate. 1. C. serrulata. 



Flowers yellow, at least the lower, 5-7-foliolate. 2. C. lutea. 



Stamens equaling or shorter than the petals, sepals distinct. 3. C. sparsifolia. 



Pods oblong, pubescent. 4. C. platycarpa. 



1. Cleome serrulata Pursh. Pink Cleome. Fig. 2153. 



Cleome serrulata Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 441. 1814. 



Peritoma serrulatum DC. Prod. 1:237. 1824. 



Cleome integrifolia Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 122. 1838. 



Annual with erect glabrous stems, 5-10 dm. high, branching above. Leaves glabrous, 3- 

 f oliolate, the lower on elongated petioles, the upper nearly or quite sessile ; leaflets lanceolate or 

 oblong, entire or serrulate, 25-75 mm. long ; racemes elongated in fruit ; pedicels slender, 

 spreading or recurved ; petals pink or white, oblong, slightly clawed, 10-12 mm. long ; pods linear, 

 25-50 mm. long, acute; stipe about equaling the pedicel. 



Plains and prairies, Sonoran Zones; eastern Washington to northeastern California, Saskatchewan, Kan- 

 sas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Adventive in the Mojave Desert, southern California. Type locality: "on 

 the banks of the Missouri River." June-Sept. 



2. Cleome lutea Hook. Yellow Cleome. Fig. 2154. 



Cleome lutea Hook. Fl. Bor. Amer. 1 : 70. pi. 25. 1830. 



Annual with erect branching stems, 5-15 dm. high. Leaves glabrous, 5-7-foliolate, slender- 



petioled, or the upper 3-foliolate and nearly sessile; leaflets oblong or oblong-lanceolate, entire, 



sessile or nearly so, 15^45 mm. long; racemes elongating in fruit; pedicels slender, 10-12 mm. 



long ; petals yellow, obovate or oblanceolate, 6-8 mm. long ; pod linear, 3-7 cm. long ; fruiting 



stipe longer than the pedicel. 



Loam or sandy bottom lands, Upper Sonoran Zone; eastern Washington to Inyo County, California, east 

 of the Sierra Nevada, and eastward to Nebraska, Arizona, and New Mexico. Type locality: on the banks of 

 the Columbia and in the valleys of the Blue Mountains, Oregon. June-Sept. 



3. Cleome sparsifolia S. Wats. Few-leaved Cleome. Fig. 2155. 



Cleome sparsifolia S. Wats. Bot. King Expl. 32. 1871. 



Much branched glabrous annual, 1-3.5 dm. high. Leaves few, leaflets 1-3, petiolulate, 6-10 

 mm. long; racemes few-flowered; flowers yellow, petals narrowly spatulate, 11-13 mm. long; 

 sepals 4, 1-2 mm. long ; filaments equal, as long as or a little shorter than the petals ; pod linear, 

 18-22 mm. long ; stipe short, 4-6 mm. long, a little shorter than the pedicel. 



Sandy desert flats, Upper and Lower Sonoran Zones; western Nevada to Inyo County, California. Type 

 locality: Carson Desert near Ragtown, Nevada. May-Sept. 



