Fleshyfruit Gladecress (Leavenworthia crassa)
Description
This plant is variable in appearance. Its morphology is determined by its genes rather than environmental conditions, and it reflects the variable breeding system of the species. Some individuals are self-incompatible and must receive pollen from other plants in order to reproduce, while others can fertilize themselves. Populations of the species have both self-incompatible and self-fertilizing individuals, but some populations are almost entirely selfing.Self-incompatible plants have a morphology that encourages pollen transfer: the flowers are large and aromatic and have anthers that are extrorse, facing outward. These plants also have two flower color morphs. Self-compatible plants have smaller, barely scented flowers with introrse, or inward-facing anthers.This annual herb forms a rosette of leaves but usually has no stem. Flowers are borne on long pedicels that emerge from bracts hidden in the leaf rosette. In favorable conditions the plant may later grow a stem with an inflorescence.The leaves have blades up to 8 centimeters long which have one to eight lobes on each edge, with the largest one at the tip. The margins are smooth or toothed. The pedicels holding the flowers are 4 to 8 centimeters long. The flower has 4 petals, each 1 to 1.4 centimeters long with a notch in the tip. The two petal color morphs are white and yellow, but all the petals have yellow or orange bases. The fruit is a smooth, oblong or somewhat rounded silicle up to about 1.4 centimeters long. The winged seeds are roughly 2 or 3 millimeters long.
Taxonomic tree
-
Domain: Eukarya
-
-
Kingdom: Plantae
-
-
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
-
-
Class: Magnoliopsida
-
-
Order: Brassicales
-
-
Family: Brassicaceae
-
-
Genus: Leavenworthia
-
-
-
-
-
-
