Resedaceae
A small natural order of annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs, mostly found in South Europe, North Africa, Syria, Asia Minor, and Persia; a few reach the Indian frontier, and three inhabit the Cape Colony. Flowers hermaphrodite or rarely unisexual, racemose or spicate, one-bracted; calyx persistent, four to seven-parted, unequal or almost equal, the segments imbricated; petals four to seven, rarely two (or none), deciduous or persistent, hypogynous or perigynous, entire or three or many-fid, ample, or with a membranous appendix at the base, free or rarely sub-coherent, open in aestivation; disk hypogynous, sessile or stipitate, often dilated behind; stamens three to forty, perigynous or inserted within the disk, not covered by the petals in aestivation; filaments free or monadelphous at base; anthers two-celled, introrse. Fruit a capsule, closed or gaping at the apex, rarely a berry, sometimes follicular; seeds many, rarely few. Leaves scattered or fascicled, simple, trifid, or pinnatiparted; stipules small, gland-like. Mignonette (Reseda odorata), one of the members of this order, requires no eulogy here. The Dyers' Weed (R. Luteola) yields a yellow dye, which is largely used; its leaves are very bitter. The order comprises half-a-dozen genera, and, according to the authors of the "Genera Plantarum," not more than thirty distinct species. Reseda is the principal genus.