23. Eruca Miller, Gard. Dict. Abr., ed. 4. vol. 1. 1754.
[Latin uro, burn, alluding to the burning taste of seeds]
Suzanne I. Warwick
Annuals; not scapose; glabrous, hirsute, or hispid, (trichomes often retrorse). Stems erect, branched [unbranched]. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal rosulate or not, petiolate, blade margins usually lyrate-pinnatifid or pinnatipartite, rarely bipinnatisect or undivided; cauline shortly petiolate or sessile, blade (base not auriculate), margins entire, dentate, or pinnatifid. Racemes (corymbose), greatly elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels erect to ascending, stout. Flowers: sepals (sometimes persistent), erect, oblong [linear], (connivent), lateral pair saccate basally; petals cream or yellow (with dark brown or purple veins), broadly obovate, claw differentiated from blade (± equal to sepals, apex obtuse or emarginate); stamens strongly tetradynamous; filaments not dilated basally; anthers oblong or linear, (base sagittate, apex obtuse); nectar glands (4), distinct, median pair present. Fruits siliques, dehiscent, sessile, segments 2, linear or oblong [elliptic], not torulose, terete or slightly 4-angled; (terminal segment indehiscent, flattened and ensiform, seedless); valves each with prominent midvein, (coriaceous), glabrous, hirsute, or hispid; replum rounded; septum complete, (membranous); ovules 10-50 per ovary; (style obsolete); stigma conical, 2-lobed (lobes connivent, decurrent). Seeds biseriate, plump, not winged, [sub]globose or ovoid; seed coat (minutely reticulate), mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons conduplicate. x = 11.
Species 1: introduced; Eurasia, Africa; introduced also in Mexico, Central America, South America, Asia, Atlantic Islands, Australia.
