| Chilocardamum | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Brassicales |
| Family: | Brassicaceae |
| Tribe: | Thelypodieae |
| Genus: | Chilocardamum O.E.Schulz [1] |
| Synonyms [2] | |
| |
Chilocardamum is a small genus of four herbaceous cress-like species of plants in the family Brassicaceae, only found growing in Patagonia, southern Argentina.
It was first described in 1924 by the German botanist Otto Eugen Schulz. [1] The first known species, Ch. patagonicum, was initially classified as a Sisymbrium by Carlo Luigi Spegazzini in 1897. [3] [4] The other three species were more recently moved to this genus from Sisymbrium by the Iraqi botanist Ihsan Ali Al-Shehbaz, when he resurrected the genus in 2006. [5] Dimitria was a monotypic genus created by the Chilean botanist Pierfelice Ravenna to house Ch. onuridifolium in 1972; [6] now considered a synonym of the genus Chilocardamum, [2] it was already synonymised with Sisymbrium by the Argentine botanist M. C. Romanczuk in 1981. [6]
Chilocardamum is quite similar in fruit and flower to Zuloagocardamum and Weberbauera . It is distinguished by having trichomes which are branched and dendritic, rarely with a few simple trichomes in the indumentum, the basal leaves are sessile and linear or awl-shaped, the stems are elongated and have cauline leaves, the inflorescence is an ebracteate raceme which is longer than the basal leaves, and seeds without mucilage. The fruit are non-curved, linear siliques which are not torulose. [7]
The genus is endemic to southern Argentina. [2] [3]
As of 2017, the four species accepted in the Plants of the World Online database, and in the Flora del Conosur , are: [2] [3]