Flora of North America species comparison

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Brassica elongata

elongated mustard
Habit Biennials or perennials; (short-lived, often woody basally); glabrous or hirsute.
Stems

(several from base), branched basally, 5–10 dm, (usually glabrous, rarely sparsely hirsute).
Basal leaves

blade (usually bright green), obovate to elliptic (not lobed), (3–)5–20(–30) cm × (5–)10–35(–60) mm, (base cuneate), margins subentire to dentate, (surfaces glabrous or often with trichomes minute, tubercled-based, curved, coarse).
Cauline leaves

(distal) shortly petiolate;

blade (oblong or lanceolate, to 10 cm) base not auriculate or amplexicaul.
Racemes

paniculately branched.
Flowers

sepals 3–4(–4.5) × 1–1.5 mm;

petals bright yellow to orange-yellow, obovate, (5–)7–10 × 2.5–3.5(–4) mm, claw 2.5–4 mm, apex rounded;

filaments 3.5–4.5 mm;

anthers 1–1.5 mm;

gynophore 1.5–4(–5) mm in fruit.
Fruiting pedicels

spreading to divaricately ascending, (6–)8–18 mm.
Fruits

(stipitate), spreading to ascending (not appressed to rachis), torulose, terete, (1.5–)2–4(–4.8) cm × (1–)1.5–2 mm;

valvular segment with (2–)5–11(–13) seeds per locule, (1.2–)1.6–4(–4.5) cm, terminal segment seedless, 0.5–2.5(–3) mm.
Seeds

grey to brown, 1–1.6 mm diam.;

seed coat reticulate, mucilaginous when wetted.
2n

= 22.

Brassica elongata
Phenology Flowering Jun–Jul.
Habitat Roadsides, disturbed ground, adjacent open juniper and sagebrush desert areas
Elevation 0-2700 m (0-8900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
NV; OR; WA; Europe; Asia; n Africa [Introduced in North America; introduced also in Australia]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

The earliest North American collections of Brassica elongata were from ballast at Linnton, near Portland, Oregon, in 1911, and from a garden in Bingen, Klickitat County, Washington, in 1915. The species does not appear to have persisted at, or spread from, either location (R. C. Rollins and I. A. Al-Shehbaz 1986). It was next collected in 1968 from east-central Nevada, where it is now well-established in Eureka and White Pine counties, and just into Lander County, and spreading rapidly along both roadsides and adjacent high desert (Rollins 1980; Rollins and Al-Shehbaz; Rollins 1993). The semiarid region of North America appears to be a well-suited habitat for B. elongata and the species appears destined to become a permanent part of the flora of the Intermountain Basin (Rollins and Al-Shehbaz).

According to R. C. Rollins (1980), the Nevada plants belong to subsp. integrifolia (Boissier) Breistroffer, but the species is so variable that dividing it into infraspecific taxa is not practical.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 420.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Brassiceae > Brassica
Sibling taxa
B. fruticulosa, B. juncea, B. napus, B. nigra, B. oleracea, B. rapa, B. tournefortii
Name authority Ehrhart: Beitr. Naturk. 7: 159. (1792)
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).



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