33. Camelina Crantz, Stirp. Austr. Fasc. 1: 17. 1762.
Flaxweed, false-flax, gold-of-pleasure [Greek chamai, dwarf or on the ground, and linon, flax, alluding to suppressing influence on growth of flax]
Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz, Mark A. Beilstein
Annuals or biennials; not scapose; pubescent, glabrescent, or glabrous, trichomes simple or short-stalked, with forked to substellate or subdendritic (smaller) ones. Stems erect, unbranched basally, branched distally, (basally hirsute with simple trichomes or sparsely pubescent with branched ones). Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or subsessile; basal (often withered by flowering), rosulate or not, petiolate, blade margins entire or toothed or, rarely, lobed; cauline blade (base auriculate or sagittate), margins entire, dentate to lobed, or denticulate. Racemes (corymbose, several-flowered), considerably elongated in fruit, (rachis straight, rarely strongly flexuous). Fruiting pedicels ascending to divaricate, slender. Flowers: sepals erect to ascending, oblong or ovate; petals usually yellow, rarely white, oblanceolate [spatulate], (longer than sepals), claw and blade somewhat differentiated, (apex obtuse); stamens in 3 pairs of unequal length; filaments not dilated basally; anthers ovate or oblong, (apex obtuse); nectar glands (4), lateral, 1 on each side of lateral stamen. Fruits silicles or, rarely, siliques, dehiscent, shortly stipitate, pyriform, obovoid, or depressed globose [linear], keeled or not, slightly latiseptate; valves each with prominent or obscure midvein, (leathery, smooth, margins of each flattened and connate, apex abruptly caudate and extending 1-2.5 mm onto, and appearing as part of, style), pubescent; replum concealed by connate margins of valves; septum complete; ovules 8-25 per ovary; stigma capitate. Seeds biseriate or, rarely, uniseriate, plump or slightly flattened, not winged or narrowly margined, oblong; seed coat (minutely reticulate), copiously mucilaginous when wetted; cotyledons incumbent or, rarely, accumbent. x = 6, 7, 10, 13.
Species 8 (4 in the flora): introduced; Europe, Asia, n Africa; introduced also in South America, Australia.
SELECTED REFERENCES McGregor, R. L. 1985. Current status of the genus Camelina (Brassicaceae) in the prairies and plants of central North America. Contr. Univ. Kansas Herb. 15: 1-13. Tedin, O. 1925. Vererbung, Variation und Systematik der Gattung Camelina. Hereditas (Lund) 6: 275-386.