Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Erect annual or perennial herbs, shrubs, or small trees, glabrous to glandular pubescent, often spiny.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (palmate). Alternate. Leaflets flat or folded, with 3–7(–11) leaflets. Margins entire to serrulate. Veins pinnate. Petioles with pulvinus basally or distally. Stipules minute or absent, the spines in some species may be modified stipules.

Flowers: Flowers in leafy terminal racemes, greatly elongating in fruit. Flowers bisexual (perfect), slightly zygomorphic. Calyx of 4 sepals; sepals distinct or connate at base. Corolla of 4 petals, whiten yellow, pink, or purple, subequal, distinct, spatulate, entire. Stamens 5–6, Stamens alternate with the petals; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, sessile or borne on a gynophore, placentas intruded, forming an open or connate septum, 1-celled; ovule placentation parietal.

Fruit: Capsules elongate; pendent; deflexed; or erect; 2–valved; beaked. Seeds numerous; orbicular to horseshoe–shaped; sometimes with an elaiosome.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: