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charlock, mustard

Habit Annuals [perennials]; not scapose; glabrous or pubescent.
Stems

erect, unbranched or branched distally.

Leaves

basal and cauline;

petiolate or sessile;

basal usually not rosulate, petiolate, blade margins usually lyrate, pinnatifid, or 1- or 2-pinnatisect, rarely undivided, (lobes usually coarsely dentate);

cauline shortly petiolate or subsessile [sessile], blade (base not auriculate), margins often dentate or shallowly lobed [entire], rarely subentire.

Racemes

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

Flowers

sepals usually spreading, rarely reflexed, narrowly oblong [linear], lateral pair not saccate basally;

petals (spreading), yellow, obovate, claw differentiated from blade, (claw subequaling sepal, apex obtuse or emarginate);

stamens tetradynamous;

filaments not dilated basally;

anthers oblong, (apex obtuse);

nectar glands (4), distinct, lateral pair usually prismatic, rarely lobed, median pair present, (ovoid).

Fruiting pedicels

ascending, divaricate, or suberect [erect, reflexed], stout [slender].

Fruits

siliques, dehiscent, sessile, segments 2, linear or lanceolate [oblong], torulose, terete or slightly flattened [4-angled, latiseptate]; (valvular segment dehiscent, longer or shorter than terminal segment, 2–5(–12)-seeded;

terminal segment indehiscent, seedless or 1- [2-]seeded, flattened and ensiform, or terete and conical or subulate, sometimes corky);

valves each with 3–5(–7) prominent, longitudinal veins, (thin or thick), glabrous or pubescent;

replum rounded;

septum complete;

ovules 4–20 per ovary;

stigma capitate, 2-lobed.

Seeds

uniseriate, usually plump, rarely slightly flattened, not winged, globose;

seed coat (finely reticulate [smooth or alveolate]), mucilaginous or not when wetted;

cotyledons conduplicate.

x

= [7], 9, 12.

Sinapis

Distribution
from USDA
Eurasia; n Africa [Introduced in North America; introduced also nearly worldwide]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species 5 (2 in the flora).

Sinapis has often been merged with Brassica in North American taxonomic treatments, whereas taxonomists elsewhere maintain both genera and separate them by the number of veins of the fruit valves and the orientation of sepals. The two genera also differ in their mustard oils and seed proteins, thus supporting their maintenance (I. A. Al-Shehbaz 1985). Molecular studies (S. I. Warwick and L. D. Black 1991, 1993) have suggested that neither genus is monophyletic and, except for S. aucheri (Boissier) O. E. Schulz, the remaining taxa of Sinapis show a very close relationship to B. nigra, consistent with Linnaeus’s original description of this species as S. nigra.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Key
1. Fruiting pedicels divaricate; fruits lanceolate, hispid, trichomes of 2 types; terminal segment flattened, equal to or longer than valves, seedless.
S. alba
1. Fruiting pedicels ascending to suberect; fruits linear, glabrous or pubescent, trichomes of 1 type; terminal segment terete, much shorter than valves, seedless or 1-seeded.
S. arvensis
Source FNA vol. 7, p. 441. Author: Suzanne I. Warwick.
Parent taxa Brassicaceae > tribe Brassiceae
Subordinate taxa
S. alba, S. arvensis
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 668. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 299. (1754)
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