37. Physaria gracilis (Hooker) O’Kane & Al-Shehbaz, Novon. 12: 323. 2002.
Spreading bladderpod
Vesicaria gracilis Hooker, Bot. Mag. 63: plate 3533. 1836; Alyssum gracile (Hooker) Kuntze; Lesquerella gracilis (Hooker) S. Watson
Annuals or biennials; (delicate, wiry); with a fine taproot; pubescent, trichomes (sessile or subsessile), 4-7-rayed, rays distinct, usually furcate, occasionally bifurcate, (smooth to somewhat tuberculate). Stems simple to several from base, erect, often outer decumbent, (unbranched or branched distally), 1-7 dm. Basal leaves: blade oblanceolate to elliptic, 1.5-8(-11.5) cm, margins lyrate-pinnatifid to dentate or repand, (abaxial surface densely pubescent, adaxial sparsely pubescent). Cauline leaves: (proximal petiolate, distal sessile); blade oblanceolate to oblong, 1-7 cm, margins dentate to repand. Racemes loose, (elongated). Fruiting pedicels (usually divaricate-spreading, sometimes horizontal or shallowly recurved, straight or slightly curved), (7-)10-20(-25) mm, (slender or stout). Flowers: sepals elliptic or broadly ovate, 3-6.5(-8) mm, (median pair slightly thickened apically, cucullate); petals (yellow to orange), broadly obovate, 6-11 mm, (narrowing gradually to short claw). Fruits (stipitate or subsessile, gynophore 1-2 mm), globose, subglobose, obpyriform, or obovoid, not or slightly inflated, 3-9 mm; valves (not retaining seeds after dehiscence), glabrous throughout or sparsely pubescent inside; replum as wide as or wider than fruit; ovules 8-20(-28) per ovary; style 2-4.5 mm. Seeds slightly flattened.
Subspecies 2 (2 in the flora): c, se United States.
