Lepidium peregrinum

Detailed description

Perennial herb to sub-shrub, usually 0.1–0.8 m tall, sometimes ascending to 2 m in surrounding vegetation. Stems erect to decumbent, slightly angular and ridged, glabrous or rarely sparsely vestured with blunt peg-like hairs. Rosette and lower cauline leaves variably petiolate, the lamina pinnatifid with a large broad-lanceolate terminal lobe, vestured with long-acicular hairs on the upper surface and margins, the distal margins serrate (60–100 mm long, 15–25 mm wide). Mid-cauline leaves lanceolate and broadly petiolate, the serrate to serrulate margins with numerous tooth-like hairs; branch-subtending leaves with auriculate to sagittate bases at the point of leaf insertion, sessile to subsessile (40–90 × 4–9 mm). Upper cauline leaves narrow-lanceolate to linear, often with entire margins with sparse tooth-like hairs, the bases usually attenuate at the point of leaf insertion (10–20 × 1.0–1.5 mm). Inflorescences initially corymbose, elongating during flowering to a maximum of 200 mm. Branch-terminal racemes often appearing lateral and leaf-opposed, overtopped by a subtending axillary flowering branch. Rhachis glabrous to minutely puberulent towards the apex, slightly angular and ridged. Flowers minute; sepals 0.5–0.75 mm long, the adaxial sepal dorsally villous in the upper half, the abaxial sepal glabrous or with 1 or 2 hairs, the lateral pair of sepals always glabrous. Petals reduced or absent. Stamens 2, median. Pedicels 3–5 mm long at maturity, erecto-patent to sub-declinate and usually arcuate at fruiting, slender and subterete with a slightly flattened puberulent adaxial surface, 1.3–2× as long as the silicles. Silicles ovate to elliptical 2.0–3.0 × 1.5–2.0 mm, acutely emarginate with triangular wings forming a V-shaped notch. Styles short, included in the notch. Valves green or purple, glabrous. Seeds narrowly ovoid, 1.25–1.5 × 0.5–0.75 mm, wingless. Cotyledons incumbent. Description modified from Scarlett (1999).