Flora of North America species comparison

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Cusickiella

Cusick's mustard, cusickiella
Habit Perennials; (cespitose or pulvinate, taprooted, caudex much-branched, woody, with persistent leaf remains); scapose or subscapose; glabrous or pubescent, trichomes simple, often mixed with stalked, forked, or subdendritic ones.
Stems

erect, unbranched.
Leaves

basal and sometimes cauline;

sessile;

basal (terminating caudex branches, thickened at base, persistent, erect), rosulate, blade margins entire;

cauline (absent or few as bracts), blade (base not auriculate), margins entire.
Racemes

(corymbose, proximal flowers sometimes bracteate), elongated in fruit.
Flowers

sepals (erect to ascending), oblong;

petals white or yellowish, spatulate or oblanceolate, (slightly longer than sepals, base attenuate to short claw);

stamens slightly tetradynamous;

filaments dilated basally;

anthers ovate;

nectar glands: lateral annular, median glands confluent with lateral.
Fruiting pedicels

divaricate or ascending, slender.
Fruits

sessile or minutely stipitate, ovoid or ellipsoid, not torulose, terete or 4-angled, (thick and leathery);

valves each with prominent or obscure midvein, (sometimes keeled), puberulent or glabrous;

replum rounded;

septum complete;

ovules 4 per ovary;

stigma capitate.
Seeds

aseriate, plump, not winged, ovoid to oblong;

seed coat (smooth), not mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons incumbent or obliquely so.

Cusickiella
Distribution
from USDA
w United States
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 2 (2 in the flora).

Species of Cusickiella superficially resemble those of Draba, but the two genera are clearly unrelated. Cusickiella is easily distinguished from Draba by having incumbent cotyledons and four seeds per fruit, whereas Draba has accumbent cotyledons and more seeds per fruit.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Racemes ebracteate; fruit valves rounded on back, each with obscure midvein; leaf blades (0.3-)0.5-1.2(-1.4) cm, trichomes on surfaces not setiform; petals white.
C. douglasii
1. Racemes bracteate basally; fruit valves keeled on back, each with prominent midvein; leaf blades 0.2-0.5 cm, trichomes on surfaces setiform; petals pale yellow.
C. quadricostata
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 412. Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Boechereae
Subordinate taxa
C. douglasii, C. quadricostata
Name authority Rollins: J. Jap. Bot. 63: 68. (1988)
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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