Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Berteroa

berteroa, false madwort, hoary-alyssum
Habit Annuals or biennials [perennials]; not scapose; pubescent, trichomes stellate, mixed with simple ones.
Stems

erect [ascending], usually branched distally.
Leaves

basal and cauline;

petiolate or sessile;

basal not rosulate, petiolate, blade margins entire or repand [dentate, sinuate];

cauline (middle and distal) sessile.
Racemes

(corymbose, several-flowered, dense), considerably elongated in fruit.
Flowers

sepals erect-ascending [suberect, spreading], oblong, lateral pair not saccate basally;

petals usually white, rarely yellow, obcordate, apex deeply 2-fid;

stamens tetradynamous;

filaments: median pair flattened basally, unappendaged, [laterally 1-toothed], lateral pair with basal toothlike appendage;

anthers oblong, (apex obtuse);

nectar glands (4), lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen.
Fruiting pedicels

erect or divaricate, slender.
Fruits

sessile, oblong, or elliptic [ovate, obovate, or orbicular], smooth, slightly inflated [or not inflated], latiseptate;

valves each not veined or with obscure midvein, stellate-hairy [glabrous];

replum rounded;

septum complete, (membranous);

ovules 4–16 per ovary;

stigma capitate, obscurely 2-lobed.
Seeds

biseriate, flattened [plump], margined [winged or not], lenticular or ovoid-lenticular [suborbicular];

seed coat (minutely reticulate), not mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons accumbent.
x

= 8.

Berteroa
Distribution
from USDA
Europe; Asia [Introduced in North America]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 5 (1 in the flora).

Berteroa mutabilis (Ventenat) de Candolle, native to northeastern Italy, the Balkan Peninsula, and northern Turkey, is known in North America only from a handful of collections almost all made more than a century ago as garden escapes in Kansas and Massachusetts. Although it was included by R. C. Rollins (1993), who indicated that it had not been collected for 60 years, the species apparently did not become naturalized in North America and, therefore, is not included here. From B. incana, B. mutabilis is easily distinguished by having winged instead of margined seeds, and flat and glabrous versus inflated and pubescent fruits. As indicated by I. A. Al-Shehbaz (1987), the record of B. obliqua (Smith) de Candolle from the Catskill region, New York, was based on misidentified plants of B. incana.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 252. Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Alysseae
Subordinate taxa
B. incana
Name authority de Candolle: Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. 7: 232: 290. (1821)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers