Citation: Prepared by R. Pearce

Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Herbs or shrubs, annual or perennial; stems erect or ascending, more or less branched; leaves herbaceous or rarely subsucculent, alternate, simple, entire to pinnatisect, midrib always winged in incised leaves, indumentum often present.

Inflorescence terminal, in spike-like racemes; flowers solitary, zygomorphic, pedicellate or subsessile in the axil of bracts; sepals 4-6 rarely to 8; petals alternate with the sepals, 3-6 rarely to 8, differing in shape, appendaged or rarely not, superior largest others reduced; stamens 10-32, surrounding the ovary, rarely on 1 side; ovary superior, of 3 or 4 carpels, sometimes 5 or 6 rarely 2, angled, apical teeth 3 or 4 or rarely to 6, gaping, 1-chambered or more rarely apocarpous; ovules usually imbricate, in 2 or more rows.

Fruit dry, thin-walled, gaping, capsule cylindrical to depressed-globose; seeds reniform, numerous, smooth, papillose or rugose.

Distribution:  6 genera with about 69 species; Eurasia, Africa and 1 species in North America. Only Reseda is established in Australia. (M. S. Abdallah (1967) and M. S. Abdallah & H. C. D. de Wit (1978) Meded. Landbouwhogesch. Wageningen 67, 8:1-98 & 78, 14:99-416.)

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available