Iberis |
Iberis amara |
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candytuft |
annual candytuft, rocket candytuft |
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Habit | Annuals, perennials, or subshrubs [biennials]; not scapose; glabrous or pubescent. | Annuals; glabrous or pubescent distal to base. | ||||||||
Stems | erect or decumbent, often branched distally. |
erect, branched distally, 1–4 dm. |
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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. |
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Basal leaves | absent. |
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Cauline leaves | petiolate or (distal) sessile; blade spatulate or oblanceolate to oblong, 2–6 cm × 5–15 mm, margins pinnatifid or dentate, or (distalmost) entire or dentate. |
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Racemes | (corymbose), elongated or not in fruit. |
considerably elongated in fruit. |
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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. |
sepals oblong, 1.5–3 mm; petals white or pink to purple, abaxial pair 5–8 × 2–5 mm, adaxial pair 2–5 × 1.5–3 mm. |
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Fruiting pedicels | spreading, divaricate, descending, or ascending, slender. |
spreading to slightly descending, 3–10 mm. |
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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. |
suborbicular to broadly ovate, 4–6(–7) × 3–6 mm, apically notched; valves extending into acute to obtuse wing; style 0.8–2 mm, exserted or included in apical notch. |
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Seeds | flattened, often winged, ovate [orbicular to reniform]; seed coat mucilaginous or not when wetted; cotyledons accumbent. |
narrowly winged, 2–3 mm. |
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x | = 7, 8, 9, 11. |
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2n | = 14. |
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Iberis |
Iberis amara |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Aug. | |||||||||
Habitat | Escape from cultivation, waste places, old fields, lawns | |||||||||
Distribution |
Europe; sw Asia [Introduced in North America] |
MI; NS; ON; w Europe [Introduced in North America; introduced also in South America] |
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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.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 7, p. 563. | FNA vol. 7, p. 564. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | ||||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 648. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 292. (1754) | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 649. (1753) | ||||||||
Web links |