CARDAMINE Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 654. 1753.

Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz and Karol Marhold

Tribe: Cardamineae Dumort., Fl. Belg.: 124. 1827.

Name derivation: Greek kardamon, used by Dioscorides for some species of Brassicaceae.

Lectotype species (designated by Britton & Brown, Ill. Fl. N.U.S., ed. 2, 2: 183. 1913): C. pratensis L.

Dentaria Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 653. 1753. Lectotype species (designated by Britton & Brown, Ill. Fl. N.U.S., ed. 2, 2: 187. 1913: D. pentaphyllos L.

Dracamine Nieuwland, Amer. Midl. Naturalist 4: 40. 1915. Type species: not designated.

Heterocarpus Philippi, Bot. Zeitung 14: 641. 1856, not Wight (1853). Type species: H. fernandezianus R. A. Philippi.

Ghinia Bubani, Fl. Pyrenaea 3: 158. 1901, non Schreber (1789). Type species: not designated.

Iti Garnock-Jones & P. N. Johnson, New Zealand J. Bot. 25: 603. 1988. Type species: I. lacustris Garnock-Jones & P. N. Johnson.

Loxostemon J. D. Hooker & Thomson, J. Proc. Linn. Soc., Bot. 5: 129. 1861. Type species: L. pulchellus J. D. Hooker & Thomson.

Porphyrocodon W. J. Hooker in Bentham & J. D. Hooker, Gen. Pl. 1: 79. 1862.  Type species: P. pictus (W. J. Hooker) B. D. Jackson.

Pteroneurum de Candolle, Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. 7: 231. 1821. Type species: not designated.

Sphaerotorrhiza (O. E. Schulz) Khokhrjakov, Fl. Magadansk. Obl. 235. 1985. Type species: S. trifida (Poiret ex Lamarck) Khokhrjakov.

            Herbs, annual, biennial, or perennial, rhizomatous or tuberous, sometimes with axillary bulbils. Trichomes absent or simple. Multicellular glands absent. Stems erect or prostrate, leafy or rarely leafless and plant scapose. Basal leaves petiolate, rosulate or not, simple and entire, toothed, or 1–3-pinnatisect, or palmately lobed, sometimes trifoliolate, pinnately, palmately, or bipinnately compound; cauline leaves alternate, rarely opposite or whorld, simple or compound as basal leaves, petiolate or sessile and base cuneate to attenuate or auriculate to sagittate, margin entire, dentate, or variously lobed. Racemes several to many-flowered, ebracteate or rarely bracteate throughout, corymbose or in panicles, elongated in fruit; rachis straight or rarely flexuous; fruiting pedicels slender or thickened, erect, divaricate, or reflexed. Sepals ovate or oblong, free, caducous or rarely persistent, erect to rarely spreading, equal or unequal, base of lateral pair saccate or not. Petals white, pink, purple, or violet, never yellow, erect to spreading, longer than sepals, rarely absent; blade obovate, spatulate, oblong, or oblanceolate, apex obtuse or emarginate; claw absent or strongly differentiated from blade, longer to shorter than sepals, glabrous, unappendaged, entire. Stamens 6 and slightly to strongly tetradynamous, rarely 4 and equal in length, erect or spreading, exserted or included; filaments wingless, unappendaged, glabrous, free, dilated or not at base; anthers ovate to oblong or linear, not apiculate at apex. Nectar glands confluent and subtending bases of all stamens; median nectaries 2 or rarely 4 or absent; lateral nectaries annular or semiannular. Ovules 4-80 per ovary; placentation parietal. Fruit dehiscent capsular siliques, linear or rarely oblong, elliptic, or narrowly lanceolate, slightly to strongly latiseptate, not inflated, unsegmented; valves papery, not veined or rarely proximal part with an obscure midvein, glabrous or very rarely hairy, not keeled, flat, not covering entire fruit width, smooth or torulose, wingless, unappendaged, dehiscing elastically acropetally, spirally or circinately coiled; gynophore absent; replum strongly flattened, visible; septum complete, membranous, tansluscent, veinless; style distinct and slender, rarely obsolete, persistent, glabrous; stigma capitate, entire, unappendaged. Seeds uniseriate, wingless or not margined, oblong to ovate, slightly flattened; seed coat smooth, minutely reticulate, colliculate, or rugose; mucilaginous or not when wetted; cotyledons accumbent or very rarely incumbent. × = 7, 8.

Over 200 species: worldwide and with native species on all continents except Antarctica.

Interactive key to the genera is being prepared.