CRITCITERE (Lat. cross-carrying), an important natural order of exogenous plants, including about 1600 known species, and corresponding with the class tetradynamia of the Linnwan system. See BOTANY. The .flowers have a calyx of four sepals, which fall off after flowering; and a corolla of four petals, which are placed in the form of a cross—whence the name C.—and alternate with the sepals. There are six stamens; four long ones in opposite pairs, and two short ones between the pairs of long ones. The ovary is superior, and there are two stigmas. The fruit is either long and podlike (a sitique), or a short and roundish pouch (silicule); one-celled, or (usually) spuriously two-celled, by the parietal placentae (see PLACENTA) meeting in the middle, and forming a kind of dissepiment (q.v.); and contains either one seed, or many in a single row. Linnaeus divided his class tetradynamia into the orders siliquosa and siliculosa, according to the form of the fruit, and these may also be regarded as forming sub-orders of this natural order; but another division has more recently been adopted, founded on the character of the cotyledons (q.v.), and the manner in which the radicle is folded upon them (cotyledons aecumbent, incumbent, or conduplicate). The general character of the order is antiscorbutic and stimulant, with more or less acridity. It contains many plants extensively cultivated for the food of man and of domestic animals, or valuable in medi cine, as kale (cabbage, cauliflower. broccoli, etc.), turnip, rape, radish, cress,
horse-radish, scurvy grass, mustard, sea-kale, gold of pleasure, etc. The dye-stuff called woad is produced by a plant of this order. It includes also a number of garden-flowers highly esteemed for their beauty and fragrance, as wallflower, stock, rocket, etc. The pungency and acridity of the C. seems to depend on a volatile oil, or on different volatile oils of very similar character, present in very various degree in different species, or in the same species under different circumstances, and in different parts of the same plant. This diversity is very well illustrated in the common turnip; in the different qualities of the root, as to sweetness and adridity, in different soils or seasons, and in the differ ence between the flesh and the rind. The seeds of the C. contain a fixed oil. which is extracted from some (rape, colza, in Europe; myagrantsalitunt and erysimumperfolialum in Japan), to be used as a lamp-oil and in the arts, and the oil•cake is valuable for feed ing cattle. The plants of this order belong mostly to the temparate parts of the world, and particularly abound in Europe. Comparatively few are found within the tropics.