Cardamine L.
Annual to perennial rhizomatous or taprooted herbs. Hairs simple or 0. Stems ascending to erect, sparsely leafy. Lvs simple and entire to pinnatifid or pinnate; lobes entire or bluntly to sharply lobed or toothed. Racemes ebracteate, sometimes contracted to a loose umbel or corymb, sometimes whole infl. sessile. Sepals erecto-patent, the inner slightly saccate. Petals white, rarely pink or mauve, or 0. Stamens (4)-6. Lateral nectaries 2, in a circle or semicircle around single stamens; median nectaries 2, variously shaped, outside paired stamens. Style long or short; stigma capitate or 2-lobed. Silique linear, dehiscent; valves veinless or with a weak median vein, flat, coiling suddenly and tightly from base at dehiscence, glabrous or hairy; beak 0. Seeds ellipsoid, not or barely winged, in 1 row per locule.
Key
c. 160 spp., cosmopolitan, chiefly temperate. Native spp. 5, naturalised 3.
The number of native spp. may be about 20 but few have been named. The following treatment is provisional for the native spp. and based largely on the studies of Pritchard, G. G., Trans. Roy. Soc. N.Z. 85 : 75-89 (1957), and A. P. Druce (unpubl.). Extensive further work following the lines taken by Pritchard is required before the native spp. can be understood.
