Siliqua (plant)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Siliqua (plural siliquae, American English silique/siliques) in botany is a fruit structure found in the Cruciferae. It is a specialised capsule that opens from below by 2 valves leaving the seeds attached to the framework made up of the placenta and and the tissue of the wall of the fruit. There is often an indehiscent beak at the base of the style and one or more seeds may be borne there. Where a siliqua is less than 3 times as long as it is broad , it is usually termed a Silicula.
Siliquae occur in most genera of the Cricferae but in some, such Raphanus the fruit is elongated into jointed sections with only the lowest joint corresponding to a typical siliqua. In other genera such as Capsella the siliqua is foreshortened and heart shaped - a silicula.
[edit] Reference
- Flora of the British Isles - Clapham, Tutin and Warburg, Cambridge University Press, 1962
