63. Iberis Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 648. 1753; Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 292. 1754.
Candytuft [Name used by Dioscorides for an Iberian plant]
Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz
Annuals, perennials, or subshrubs [biennials]; not scapose; glabrous or pubescent. Stems erect or decumbent, often branched distally. Leaves cauline and sometimes basal; petiolate or sessile; basal rosulate or not, sessile [petiolate], blade (somewhat fleshy), margins entire [dentate to pinnatifid]; cauline petiolate or sessile, blade margins entire, dentate, or pinnatifid. Racemes (corymbose), elongated or not in fruit. Fruiting pedicels spreading, divaricate, descending, or ascending, slender. Flowers: sepals ascending [erect], ovate or oblong; petals (zygomorphic, outer [abaxial] pair larger than inner [adaxial] pair), white or pink to purple, obovate [oblanceolate], claw often distinct; stamens tetradynamous; filaments not dilated basally; anthers ovate or oblong, (apex obtuse); nectar glands (4), lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen. Fruits sessile, (winged), suborbicular or ovate [obcordate], not torulose, keeled, strongly angustiseptate; valves not veined, (winged), glabrous; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules 2 per ovary; stigma capitate, entire or 2-lobed. Seeds flattened, often winged, ovate [orbicular to reniform]; seed coat mucilaginous or not when wetted; cotyledons accumbent. x = 7, 8, 9, 11.
Species 27 (3 in the flora): introduced; Europe, sw Asia.
