Cochlearia conwayi Illustration Credit: Shaukat

Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, erect or suberect, sparsely branched, glabrous or sparsely hairy with simple hairs. Leaves often fleshy, simple, entire or sinuate-toothed. Racemes short, corymbose, rarely lax, few to many flowered, ebracteate. Flowers small, white rarely yellow or lilac; pedicel ascending or spreading, filiform, often flexuose and elongated in fruit. Sepals spreading, not saccate at base. Petals obovate-oblong, shortly clawed. Stamens 6; filaments linear. Lateral nectar glands in pairs, short, somewhat triangular; middle absent. Ovary ovoid, suborbicular or orbicular, few to many ovuled; style short with a capitate stigma. Siliculae ovoid, globose or ellipsoid, somewhat inflated, bilocular, dehiscent; valves with a distinct mid-vein and reticulate venation, not winged; seeds biseriate, few to many, small, oblong, subcompressed, brown; septum generally broadly elliptic, membranous, not veined; radicle accumbent.

About 25 species throughout most of the northern hemisphere; only 1 doubtful species recorded from our area.

Lower Taxon

• Cochlearia conwayi Hemsley