Nerisyrenia

Perennials [subshrubs]; (caudex woody); not scapose; usually pubescent, sometimes glabrous or glabrate, trichomes long-stalked to subsessile, dendritic. Stems (few to several from base), erect to ascending, branched distally. Leaves cauline; not rosulate; petiolate or sessile; blade (often fleshy), margins entire, dentate, or repand, sometimes revolute. Racemes (corymbose, several-flowered, lax). Fruiting pedicels divaricate to ascending, or, rarely, recurved, slender. Flowers: sepals spreading to reflexed, oblong or lanceolate to ovate [linear]; petals usually white (often fading lavender), rarely lavender, obovate to spatulate [broadly elliptic], (longer than sepals), claw well-differentiated from blade, (dilated and denticulate basally); stamens slightly tetradynamous, (somewhat spreading); anthers linear, (base sagittate, apex obtuse); nectar glands confluent, subtending bases of stamens. Fruits siliques or silicles, sessile, linear to oblong [obovoid], smooth [torulose], straight or curved, angustiseptate, terete, [or latiseptate]; valves each with distinct midvein, pubescent [glabrous]; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules 30–100 per ovary; style distinct; stigma conical, 2-lobed (lobes connivent, decurrent). Seeds uniseriate or biseriate, plump, not winged, oblong [elliptic]; seed coat mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent. x = 9, 10

Distribution

s United States, n Mexico.

Discussion

Species 7–9 (2 in the flora).

Parrasia Greene (1895), not Rafinesque (1837) is an illegitimate name, sometimes found in synonymy with Nerisyrenia.

Selected References

Bacon, J. D. 1978. Taxonomy of Nerisyrenia (Cruciferae). Rhodora 80: 159–227.

Lower Taxa

Nerisyrenia camporum, Nerisyrenia linearifolia

Key

1	Leaf blades usually obovate to spatulate or oblanceolate, rarely elliptic, (4-)7-20(-30) mm wide, not fleshy.	Nerisyrenia camporum
1	Leaf blades linear to linear-oblanceolate, 1-4.5 mm wide, fleshy.	Nerisyrenia linearifolia