Flora of North America species comparison

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Noccaea

penny-cress
Habit Biennials or perennials; (stoloniferous or simple or several from caudex); not scapose; (often glaucous).
Stems

erect or decumbent, unbranched or branched distally.
Leaves

basal and cauline;

petiolate or sessile;

basal rosulate, petiolate, margins entire, denticulate, or dentate;

cauline blade (base auriculate or subamplexicaul [sagittate]), margins entire or dentate.
Racemes

(corymbose, several-flowered), considerably elongated or congested in fruit.
Flowers

sepals erect, oblong, or ovate [obovate];

petals white, pink, or purple, spatulate [obovate, oblanceolate, oblong, or, rarely, broadly linear], (longer than sepals), claw obscurely differentiated from blade, (apex obtuse or rounded);

stamens slightly tetradynamous;

filaments not dilated basally;

anthers ovate [oblong], (apex obtuse);

nectar glands lateral, 2 and subtending stamens, or 4 and 1 on each side of stamen.
Fruiting pedicels

horizontal or, rarely, ascending, slender.
Fruits

sessile, obcordate, obovate, obdeltate, elliptical, or oblong, smooth, strongly angustiseptate, (winged or not winged apically);

valves each obscurely to prominently veined, strongly keeled;

replum rounded;

septum complete;

ovules 4–14[–24] per ovary;

style included in, or much exceeding, apical notch;

stigma capitate.
Seeds

plump or slightly compressed, not winged, ovoid [oblong];

seed coat (longitudinally, minutely reticulate to nearly smooth), not mucilaginous when wetted;

cotyledons accumbent.
x

= 7.

Noccaea
Distribution
from USDA
North America; Mexico; South America (Patagonia); Europe; Asia; n Africa
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species ca. 80 (3 in the flora).

Previous North American accounts (e.g., E. B. Payson 1926; P. K. Holmgren 1971; R. C. Rollins 1993) treated species of Noccaea as members of Thlaspi. As discussed under the latter genus (see references there) and as shown by M. Koch and I. A. Al-Shehbaz (2004), Noccaea is definitely distinct from Thlaspi. Excellent comments on the biology, variability, and distribution of the North American taxa were given by Holmgren and are not repeated here.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Petals not flaring between blade and claw, 2-2.8(-3.6) mm; styles (0.2-)0.3-0.5(-0.6) mm; sepals (1-)1.3-1.8(-2.2) mm.
N. parviflora
1. Petals often flaring between blade and claw, 3-13 mm; styles (0.3-)0.6-4.2 mm; sepals 1.5-5.3 mm
→ 2
2. Styles (0.3-)0.6-1 mm; fruits not winged apically; petals 3-5 mm; arctic Alaska, Yukon.
N. arctica
2. Styles (0.4-)1.1-4.2 mm; fruits usually winged, rarely not winged apically; petals (3.4-) 4.2-13 mm; Pacific and Mountain states.
N. fendleri
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 600. Author: Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Noccaeeae
Subordinate taxa
N. arctica, N. fendleri, N. parviflora
Name authority Moench: Suppl. Meth., 89. (1802)
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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