CAPPARIDACE^E. (CAPER FAMILY.) 27 



20. BISCUTELLA, 1 L. 



Erect stellate-pubescent branching herbs, with entire or pinnatifid leaves, 

 and yellow or purplish flowers. 



1. B. Wislizeni, Benth. & Hook. A foot or more high, covered 

 throughout with a fine, but dense, stellate pubescence : leaves linear-lanceolate 

 to broadly lanceolate, entire, slightly undulate or deeply pinnatifid : each half 

 of the pod roundish. — Dithyrcea Wislizeni, Engelm., of the various Western 

 reports. S. W. Colorado, Brandegee, to Arizona and Texas. 



Order 7. CAPPARIDACEJE. (Caper Family.) 



Herbs, with alternate leaves and perfect hypogynous flowers, sepals 

 and petals as in Gruciferce, stamens 6 or more, nearly equal in length, 

 pod one-celled with 2 parietal placentae and kidney-shaped seeds, the 

 embryo incurved rather than folded. 



* Stamens 8 to 32. 



1. Polanisia. Flowers whitish or purple. Pod elongated. 



# # Stamens 6. 



2. Cleome. Flowers yellow or pink-purple. Pod oblong or linear, many-seeded. 



3. Cleoinella. Flowers yellow. Pod rhomboidal, 2-homed or globular, few-seeded 



1. POLANISIA, Eaf. 



Sepals sometimes united at base. Petals with claws and emarginate. Pod 

 compressed or cylindrical, many-seeded. — Annual herbs, ill-scented and mostly 

 glandular, with 3-foliolate petioled leaves, and flowers in leafy bracted racemes. 



1. P. trachysperma, Torr. & Gray. Leaves with 3 lanceolate leaflets; 

 floral bracts mostly simple : petals with slender claws as long as the sepals : 

 stamens 12 to 16, exserted : pod very rarely on a short slender stipe : seeds finely 

 pitted and often warty. — P. uniglandulosa of the Fl. Colorado and Bot. King's 

 Exp. Colorado and Wyoming to the Columbia River, and eastward to Kan- 

 sas and Texas. 



2. P. gr aveolens, Raf. Leaves with 3 oblong leaflets : flowers small : 

 calyx and filaments purplish : petals yellowish-white : stamens about 1 1 , scarcely 

 exceeding the petals : pod slightly stipitate. — Upper Arkansas Valley, Colorado, 

 and eastward across the continent. 



2. CLEOME, L. 



Sepals sometimes united at base. Pod stipitate, many-seeded. — Erect 

 branching annuals, with palmately 3 to 7-foliolate leaves, flowers in bracteate 

 racemes, and pods pendent on spreading pedicels. 



» Raphamis sativus, L., is more or less hispid, with purple or rose-colored flowers, and 

 an inflated long-pointed pod. —The common Radish, running wild in cultivated grounds. 



