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wall alyssum, yellowtuft

Habit Perennials; (cespitose, sometimes caudex woody); canescent or not, trichomes stellate, 5–20-rayed.
Stems

often several from caudex (sterile shoots absent or few), usually erect or ascending, (2.5–)3–6(–7) dm.

Cauline leaves

subsessile;

blade narrowly oblanceolate to linear, (0.5–)0.7–2.5(–3) cm × 1–5(–8) mm (gradually smaller distally), base cuneate to attenuate, apex obtuse to subacute, (surfaces often more grayish abaxially than adaxially). (Racemes corymbose, in panicles terminating each stem.) Fruiting pedicels divaricate-ascending, straight or slightly curved distally, slender, (2–)2.5–6(–8) mm, trichomes uniformly stellate.

Flowers

sepals oblong, 1.2–2 × 0.4–0.7 mm, stellate-pubescent;

petals yellow, spatulate, 2.5–3.5 × 0.5–1 mm, base attenuate, apex often obtuse or rounded, glabrous abaxially;

filaments: median pairs broadly winged, apically 1-toothed, lateral pair with lanceolate or narrowly oblong basal appendage, apically subacute, 1.5–2.5 mm;

anthers oblong, 0.2–0.3 mm.

Fruits

broadly elliptic to orbicular, 3.5–5 × 2.5–5 mm, apex obtuse to rounded;

valves not inflated, flattened and slightly undulate, stellate-pubescent;

ovules 1 per ovary;

style (slender) 1–2 mm, sparsely pubescent.

Seeds

suborbicular to broadly ovoid, compressed, 3–3.8 × 2–3.2 mm, margins winged, wing 0.5–0.9 mm wide.

2n

= 16, 32.

Alyssum murale

Phenology Flowering May–Jul.
Habitat Waste areas, roadsides
Elevation 1500-1800 m (4900-5900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CO; OR; UT; AB; BC; ON; QC; Europe; sw Asia [Introduced in North America]
[BONAP county map]
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 250.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Alysseae > Alyssum
Sibling taxa
A. alyssoides, A. desertorum, A. obovatum, A. simplex, A. szowitsianum
Name authority Waldstein & Kitaibel: Descr. Icon. Pl. Hung. 1: 5. (1799)
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