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

crambe, sea kale, sea-cabbage

Habit Perennials [annuals, subshrubs]; not scapose; (glaucous), usually glabrous.
Stems

erect, branched distally.

Leaves

basal and cauline;

petiolate;

basal rosulate, blade (base not auriculate), margins sinuate-dentate to shallowly lobed, or subpinnatifid and coarsely dentate, [lyrate-pinnatipartite, pinnatisect, less frequently undivided];

cauline blade margins sinuate-dentate to lobed, less divided than basal.

Racemes

(corymbose, several-flowered, often in panicles), considerably elongated in fruit.

Flowers

sepals spreading to ascending, ovate [oblong], lateral pair not saccate basally;

petals white, cream, or yellow, obovate or oblong, claw differentiated from blade, (much shorter than sepal);

stamens tetradynamous;

filaments not dilated basally, (lateral filiform, median (inner) winged and/or toothed, rarely filiform and not toothed);

anthers ovate or oblong, (apex obtuse);

gynophore absent;

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

Fruiting pedicels

suberect to divaricate-ascending, [erect, divaricate], stout [slender].

Fruits

silicles, nutlike, indehiscent, segments 2, smooth, terete or 4-angled; (proximal segment stalklike, seedless, much shorter than terminal; terminal segment caducous, 1 (or 2)-seeded, subglobose to ovoid [globose], corky, rugose, or reticulate);

replum and septum obsolete;

ovules 2 per ovary; (style 0(–1) mm);

stigma capitate, entire.

Seeds

aseriate, plump, not winged, globose, ellipsoid, or ovoid [oblong], (pendulous on basal funicle);

seed coat (smooth), not mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons conduplicate.

x

= 15.

Crambe

Distribution
from USDA
c Europe to w Asia (Mediterranean region); n Africa; Atlantic Islands (Canary Islands) [Introduced, Oreg.]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 35 (1 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 7, p. 430. Author: Suzanne I. Warwick.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Brassiceae
Subordinate taxa
C. maritima
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 671. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 301. (1754)
Web links