Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or perennial herbs with colorless sap.

Stems: Acaulescent or caulescent. Stems, when present, several arising from a tuft of basal leaves, ± glaucous, ± branched.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades ternately cleft into numerous narrow lobes. Surfaces usually glabrous. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary, terminal. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx of 2 sepals; sepals completely connate into a calyptra that is pushed off by the expanding petals, caducous. Corolla of 4(6,8) petals; petals bright yellow or orange, distinct. Stamens 16 to numerous, distinct; filaments short; anthers linear, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule placentation parietal, cylindrical, longitudinally 10–ribbed; stigma of 4–6 linear lobes.

Fruit: Capsules dehiscing by 2 valves from base upward. Seeds numerous; subglobose to ovoid; reticulate; tuberculate; or pitted.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: