Koeh's Botanical pub. 1887

This upright, widely branching, perennial herb, grows to a height of from 1 to 2 feet from a fusiform root. Stem upright, cylindrical and branching, somewhat hairy and very brittle. Leaves alternate, petiolate, large, pale-green and glaucous, lyrate pinnatifid, with a crenately cut or lobed border, the terminal lobe obovate-cuneate. Inflorescence, pedunculated, somewhat umbellate, axillary clusters, with nodding buds and medium-sized flowers, the sepals, petals and stamens of which are early deciduous. Peduncles 2 to 4 inches long, bearing from 3 to 8 pedicels i inch in length, and involucrate at their base. Sepals 2. Corolla cruciform; petals 4. Stamens 16 to 24. Style merely present; stigma 2-lobed. Fruit a linear, slender pod, about i inch in length, somewhat swelled at intervals, the two valves opening upward from the base to the apex ; seeds rounded, reniform, with a glandular ridge at the hilum, and a crustaceous, blackish-brown testa, marked with more or less regular, hexagonal reticulations. ^{(Millspaugh, Charles F.[21])}