CAPPARIDACEAE. 163 



Family 39. CAPPARIDACEAE. Caper Family. 



Herbs or rarely 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. Petals 4, 

 sessile or clawed. Stamens usually 6, equal, inserted on 

 the receptacle; anthers oblong, longitudinally dehiscent. 

 Ovary sessile or stipitate, 1 -celled; ovules many, borne 

 on parietal placentae. Fruit a capsule or berry. Seeds 

 mostly reniform; endosperm none; cotyledons some- 

 what coiled. 



Herbs. 1. Cleome, 



Shrubs. 2. Isomeris. 



1. CLEOME L. 



Ours branching herbs with digitately 3-5-foliate leaves 

 and yellow flowers in bracteolate racemes. Sepals 4, 

 often persistent. Petals 4, cruciate, entire, equal. Sta- 

 mens 6. Ovary stipitate with gland at the base. Cap- 

 sule elongated, long-stipitate, many-seeded. 



1. C. lutea Hook. Erect, glabrous, branching, 4-12 dm. high; 

 leaves 5-foliate, slender-petioled or the upper 3-foliate and sub- 

 sessile; leaflets oblong or oblong-oblanceolate, entire, short-stalked 

 or sessile, narrowed at the base, obtuse or acute and mucronulate 

 at the apex, 1-5 cm. long; bracts linear-oblong, mucronulate; flowers 

 densely racemose; pedicels slender, 10-12 mm. long; pod linear, 

 acute, 3-6 cm. long, borne on a stipe nearly as long. 



Field near Downey, Davidson. 



2. ISOMERIS Nutt. 



Ill-scented shrubs with puberulent branches, 3-foliate 

 petioled leaves and large yellow flowers axillary or in 

 bracteate racemes. Sepals 4, persistent. Petals 4, 

 oblong, equal. Receptacle dilated with a hemispherical 

 torus. Stamens 6, inserted on the receptacle, enlarged 

 and glandular on the upper surface. Ovary long- 

 stipitate, many-ovuled on the placentae; style short; 

 stigma minute. Capsule oval or nearly globose, inflated, 

 tardily 2-valved. Seeds smooth. 



_ 1. I. arborea Nutt. Widely branching shrub, 1-3 m. high, 

 with hard yellow wood and puberulent branches; leaves 3-foliate; 



