Flora of North America species comparison

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Cakile

sea rocket, sea-rockets
Habit Annuals or, rarely, perennials; (succulent, taproot woody, with relatively long, horizontal roots); not scapose; glabrous or, sometimes, sparsely pubescent.
Stems

erect, ascending, prostrate, or divaricate, branched basally.
Leaves

cauline; usually petiolate, rarely sessile;

blade (often fleshy), not rosulate, margins entire, crenate, dentate, sinuate, or pinnately lobed.
Racemes

considerably elongated in fruit.
Flowers

sepals erect, ovate or oblong, lateral pair saccate or not basally;

petals (rarely aborted, reflexed), white to lavender, obovate to spatulate, claw differentiated from blade or not;

stamens tetradynamous;

filaments not dilated basally;

anthers (introrse), ovate to oblong;

nectar glands (4), distinct, median glands present.
Fruiting pedicels

(rachis) geniculate or not, slender or stout.
Fruits

siliques or silicles, indehiscent, stipitate, segments 2, (fleshy and green becoming corky and dry), obovoid, oblong, fusiform, or lanceoloid, rarely hastate, (proximal segment) terete or laterally horned, (terminal segment) terete, 4-angled, or 8-ribbed; (segments each falsely 1-loculed, septum papery, appressed to one side, usually 1-seeded; proximal segment remaining attached to pedicel; terminal segment deciduous by transverse articulation, beaked);

valves and replum not distinguishable;

ovules (1 or) 2(–4) per ovary; (style absent);

stigma entire or slightly 2-lobed.
Seeds

aseriate or uniseriate, plump or flattened, not winged, (brown), oblong;

seed coat (smooth), not mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons accumbent or incumbent, rarely contorted.
x

= 9.

Cakile
Distribution
from USDA
North America; Mexico; Central America; West Indies; Europe; Asia (Near East); n Africa [Introduced in e Asia (Japan), Australia]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 7 (5 in the flora).

Cakile is common on sandy beaches of the North Atlantic Ocean, the Baltic, Black, Mediterranean, North, and White seas, the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes, and is naturalized in Australia, Japan, and on the Pacific Coast of North America; one species, C. arabica Velenovsky & Bornmüller, is found in deserts of the Middle East (s Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Proximal fruit segments with 2 opposite, lateral horns distally; leaf blades broadly ovate to lanceolate, margins sinuately lobed or deeply pinnatifid; petals 3-6 mm wide, usually lavender, rarely white.
C. maritima
1. Proximal fruit segments without lateral horns distally; leaf blades ovate, ovate-lanceolate, or spatulate, margins entire, dentate, sinuate, crenate, or pinnatisect; petals 1.2-4.5 mm wide, white or lavender
→ 2
2. Plants usually sprawling; leaf blades not especially fleshy; racemes often 3+ dm; petals usually white, rarely lavender, 3-4.5 mm wide.
C. lanceolata
2. Plants not or, rarely, sprawling (erect to prostrate); leaf blades usually fleshy; racemes 1-2 dm; petals lavender to white, less than 3 mm wide
→ 3
3. Rachises geniculate in fruit; petals 1.2-1.9 mm wide.
C. geniculata
3. Rachises not geniculate in fruit; petals 1.3-3 mm wide
→ 4
4. Fruits terete to 4-angled, 3-4 mm wide; beak conic, apex acute.
C. constricta
4. Fruits 8-ribbed, or 4-angled, 5-9 mm wide; beak flattened, apex usually retuse or blunt, rarely acute.
C. edentula
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 424. Author: James E. Rodman.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Brassiceae
Subordinate taxa
C. constricta, C. edentula, C. geniculata, C. lanceolata, C. maritima
Name authority Miller: Gard. Dict. Abr. ed. 4, vol. 1. (1754)
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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