Calepina

Plants not scapose. Stems erect to ascending, unbranched or branched. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal usually rosulate, petiolate, blade margins dentate to lyrate-pinnatifid; cauline blade (base sagittate or amplexicaul), margins dentate or subentire. Racemes (corymbose, several-flowered), considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels divaricate or ascending, slender. Flowers: sepals ascending to spreading; petals oblanceolate, (apex obtuse or slightly emarginate); stamens slightly tetradynamous; filaments dilated basally; anthers ovate; nectar glands: lateral intrastaminal, median glands present (distinct). Fruits subsessile or shortly stipitate (gynophore relatively slender, fruit readily detached at maturity), nutlike, ovoid or ellipsoid, terete; valves reticulate and usually longitudinally 4-ribbed; replum rounded; septum absent; stigma capitate. Seeds (pendulous) plump, not winged, ovoid; seed coat (smooth), not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons involute in distal 1/2. x = 7.

Distribution

Introduced; Europe, e, c, sw Asia, n Africa.

Discussion

Species 2 (1 in the flora).

Calepina cochlearioides (Murray) Dumortier is distributed in Asia (China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and adjacent Russia).

Selected References

Blake, S. F. 1957. A new cruciferous weed, Calepina irregularis, in Virginia. Rhodora 59: 278–280.

Hardin, J. W. 1958. Calepina irregularis in North Carolina. Castanea 23: 111.

Lower Taxa

Calepina irregularis