Flora of North America species comparison

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Iberis

candytuft
Habit Annuals, perennials, or subshrubs [biennials]; not scapose; glabrous or pubescent.
Stems

erect or decumbent, often branched distally.
Leaves

cauline and sometimes basal;

petiolate or sessile;

basal rosulate or not, sessile [petiolate], blade (somewhat fleshy), margins entire [dentate to pinnatifid];

cauline petiolate or sessile, blade margins entire, dentate, or pinnatifid.
Racemes

(corymbose), elongated or not in fruit.
Flowers

sepals ascending [erect], ovate or oblong;

petals (zygomorphic, outer [abaxial] pair larger than inner [adaxial] pair), white or pink to purple, obovate [oblanceolate], claw often distinct;

stamens tetradynamous;

filaments not dilated basally;

anthers ovate or oblong, (apex obtuse);

nectar glands (4), lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen.
Fruiting pedicels

spreading, divaricate, descending, or ascending, slender.
Fruits

sessile, (winged), suborbicular or ovate [obcordate], not torulose, keeled, strongly angustiseptate;

valves not veined, (winged), glabrous;

replum rounded;

septum complete;

ovules 2 per ovary;

stigma capitate, entire or 2-lobed.
Seeds

flattened, often winged, ovate [orbicular to reniform];

seed coat mucilaginous or not when wetted;

cotyledons accumbent.
x

= 7, 8, 9, 11.

Iberis
Distribution
from USDA
Europe; sw Asia [Introduced in North America]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 27 (3 in the flora).

Iberis is a well-defined genus readily distinguished by having often corymbose infructescences, zygomorphic flowers, angustiseptate and often distally winged fruits, and exclusively accumbent cotyledons. N. H. Holmgren (2005b) erroneously indicated that the cotyledons in Iberis are incumbent.

All three species treated here are ornamentals that sometimes escape from cultivation. Their distributions are based on verified records, but it is very likely that the species are more widely naturalized than the records show.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Perennials or subshrubs (with sterile shoots).
I. sempervirens
1. Annuals (without sterile shoots)
→ 2
2. Racemes considerably elongated in fruit; abaxial petals 5-8 mm; styles 0.8-2 mm; cauline leaf blades: margins pinnatifid or dentate.
I. amara
2. Racemes not elongated in fruit; abaxial petals 10-16 mm; styles 2-4.5 mm; cauline leaf blades: margins entire.
I. umbellata
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 563. Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Iberideae
Subordinate taxa
I. amara, I. sempervirens, I. umbellata
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 648. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 292. (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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