Crambe |
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crambe, sea kale, sea-cabbage |
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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 |
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Distribution |
c Europe to w Asia (Mediterranean region); n Africa; Atlantic Islands (Canary Islands) [Introduced, Oreg.] |
Discussion | Species 35 (1 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 7, p. 430. |
Parent taxa | |
Subordinate taxa | |
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 671. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 301. (1754) |
Web links |