2. Aurinia Desvaux, J. Bot. Agric. 3: 162. 1815.
Goldentuft, rock-alyssum [Latin aurum, gold, and -inia, colored, alluding to flower]
Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz
Perennials [biennials, subshrubs]; (caudex woody); not scapose; pubescent, trichomes minutely stalked to sessile, stellate, 6-10-rayed [lepidote]. Stems erect or ascending, often (paniculately) branched distally. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate; basal rosulate, petiolate (petioles deeply grooved), blade margins repand, sinuate, dentate, or pinnatifid; cauline petiolate, blade (much smaller than basal), margins entire [dentate, sinuate]. Racemes (corymbose, several-flowered, buds globose), slightly or considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels divaricate or ascending , slender. Flowers: sepals spreading, ovate, lateral pair not saccate basally; petals yellow [white], obovate to spatulate, claw slightly differentiated from blade, (apex emarginate, [2-fid or obtuse]); stamens tetradynamous; filaments dilated (winged or minutely appendaged) basally; anthers ovate; nectar glands lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen. Fruits sessile, ellipsoid to obovoid, or broadly obovate to orbicular [globose, elliptic], not torulose, terete or latiseptate; valves each not veined, glabrous [pubescent]; replum rounded; septum usually complete, rarely perforate; ovules 4-8(-16) per ovary; stigma capitate, usually 2-lobed, rarely subentire. Seeds uniseriate or biseriate, flattened, winged [not winged], suborbicular [orbicular or elliptic]; seed coat not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent or oblique. x = 8.
Species 10 (2 in the flora): introduced; c, se Europe (Caucasus), sw Asia.
Selected reference Dudley, T. R. 1966. Ornamental madworts (Alyssum) and the correct name of the goldentuft alyssum. Arnoldia (Jamaica Plain) 26: 33-48.
