CITHARELOMA Bunge, Delect. Seminum Hort. Dorpat. 6: 2. 1843.

Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz

Tribe: Malcolmieae, Al-Shehbaz & Warwick, Harvard Pap. Bot. 12: 432. 2007.

Name derivation: from Greek, kithara, ancient Greek musical instrument, and loma, segment, in reference to the shape of fruit.

Type species: C. lehmannii Bunge

     Herbs annual. Trichomes subsessile stellate with basally forked rays, sometimes mixed with long-stalked dendritic ones, rarely with a few simple ones on the stem. Multicellular glands absent. Stems erect, often with two opposite basal branches from axils of cotyledons, other branches alternate. Basal leaves petiolate, not rosulate, simple, entire or dentate, soon withering; cauline leaves petiolate, not auriculate at base, dentate to entire. Racemes few flowered, ebaracteate, corymbose, elongated considerably in fruit; rachis straight or slightly flexuous; fruiting pedicels divaricate, persistent. Sepals narrowly oblong, free, deciduous, erect, unequal, base of lateral pair strongly saccate; petals purple to pink or white, erect at base with flaring blade, longer than sepals; blade narrowly oblanceolate to oblong-obovate, apex obtuse; claw strongly differentiated from blade, glabrous, unappendaged, entire; stamens 6, nearly included, erect, strongly tetradynamous; filaments filiform, wingless, unappendaged, not dilated at base, glabrous, free; anthers linear, sagittate at base, not apiculate at apex; nectar glands 2, lateral, semiannular, intrastaminal; median nectaries absent; ovules 4-24 per ovary; placentation parietal. Fruit dehiscent capsular siliques or silicles, linear to oblong or ovate, strongly latiseptate, not inflated, sessile, unsegmented; valves papery, with a distinct distinct midvein and obscure lateral veins, pubescent with stalked subsetose dendritic trichomes and/or much smaller subsessile stellate one, not keeled, strongly torulose, wingless, unappendaged; gynophore absent or rarely to 1 mm; replum rounded, undulate; septum complete, thickened, opaque, veinless; style slender, 1-5 mm, cylindric, persistent, glabrous; stigma conical, 2-lobed, lobes prominent, connivent, free, decurrent, opposite replum, unappendaged. Seeds uniseriate, broadly winged, orbicular or nearly so, strongly flattened; seed coat minutely reticulate, not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons accumbent; funicle basally adnate to septum.

Two species: C and SW Asia.

1. Fruiting pedicel (3-)5-10(-17) mm long; fruit length 2-4(-7) ´ width; fruit valves

     uniformly with subsessile stellate trichomes; anthers (1.5-)2-2.5 mm long; ovules

     2-4(or 5) per locule; gynophore 0.5-1 mm ..........................................................  1. C. lehmannii

1. Fruiting pedicel 1.5-2.5(-3) mm long; fruit length 9-12 ´ width; fruit valves with

     subsessile stellate trichomes mixed with coarser, subdendritic ones on stalks

     (0.5-)0.7-1.7(-2) mm long; anthers 0.9-1.2 mm; ovules (7-)9-12 per locule;

     gynophore obsolete              ...................................................................................... 2. C. vernum