39. Barbarea W. T. Aiton in W. Aiton and W. T. Aiton, Hortus Kew. 4: 109. 1812.
[name conserved]
Wintercress, scurvygrass, rocket, uplandcress, corn-mustard [For Saint Barbara, fourth-century, or perhaps alluding to being the only plants available for food on Saint Barbara’s Day (4 December)]
Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz
Campe Dulac
Biennials or perennials [annuals]; (rhizomatous or with woody caudex); not scapose; glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Stems erect [prostrate], branched distally, (angular [not angular]). Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate and sessile; basal rosulate or not, (and proximal cauline) petiolate, blade margins usually entire, crenate or lobed, rarely dentate or repand; cauline sessile, blade (base auriculate or amplexicaul) margins entire, dentate, or lobed. Racemes (corymbose, several-flowered), considerably [slightly] elongated in fruit, (rachis striate). Fruiting pedicels (sometimes absent), erect to divaricate, slender or stout. Flowers: sepals (sometimes persistent), erect [spreading], oblong [ovate, linear], lateral pair saccate or not basally, (apex often cucullate); petals yellow or pale yellow [creamy white], spatulate or oblanceolate, (longer than sepals), claw obscurely differentiated from blade, (apex obtuse or rounded); stamens tetradynamous; filaments (yellow), not dilated basally; anthers oblong, (apex obtuse); nectar glands (4): lateral annular, median toothlike. Fruits siliques, sessile or shortly stipitate, usually linear, rarely elliptic-linear, smooth or torulose, terete, 4-angled, or latiseptate; valves each with prominent midvein and distinct marginal veins, usually glabrous, rarely pubescent; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules 16-52 per ovary; style obsolete or distinct; stigma capitate, (sometimes slightly 2-lobed). Seeds uniseriate [sub-biseriate], plump or slightly flattened, not winged [winged or margined], oblong, ovoid, or orbicular; seed coat (reticulate or, rarely, tuberculate), not mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons accumbent. x = 8.
Species 22 (4 in the flora): North America, Europe, Asia, n Africa, Australia
SELECTED REFERENCE Fernald, M. L. 1909. The North American species of Barbarea. Rhodora. 11: 134-141.
