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  4. Lepidium ruderale

Lepidium ruderale

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Common name

roadside pepperweed, stink cress, narrow-leaved cress

Family

Brassicaceae

Authority

Lepidium ruderale L.

Flora category

Vascular – Exotic

Structural class

Herbs - Dicotyledons other than Composites

Chromosome number

2n = 16, 32

Distribution

Exotic. Known in New Zealand from a few sites in Central Otago and from Invercargill, South Island

Habitat

A weedy plant of roadsides and urban wasteland

Features

Herbs annual or biennial, (50-)100-350(-550) mm tall, fetid, puberulent with terete papillate trichomes. Stems erect or ascending, branched above. Basal leaves with petioles 10-30 mm; leaf blade (1 or)2- or 3-pinnatisect, (15-)30-50(-60) × (5-)7-2(-25) mm, glabrous except for ciliate margin; ultimate lobes oblong, entire or rarely toothed, acute. Upper cauline leaves sessile; leaf blade linear, (4-)10-20(-30) × (0.3-)0.5-2.5(-3.5) mm, sparsely pubescent, base cuneate, not auriculate, margin usually entire, ciliate, apex obtuse to subacute. Fruiting pedicels slender, divaricate, straight or slightly curved, (1.5-)2.0-4.0(-5.0) mm, puberulent all around. Sepals oblong, 0.5-0.9(-1.0) × 0.2-0.4 mm, puberulent with papillate trichomes, margin and apex white. Petals absent, sometimes rudimentary and to 0.4 mm. Stamens 2; filaments 0.7-0.8 mm; anthers ovate, 0.1-0.2 mm. Fruit broadly elliptic, (1.5-)1.8-2.5(-3.0) × 1.5-2.0(-2.3) mm, narrowly winged apically; apical notch 0.1-0.2 mm; style to 0.1 mm, included in apical notch. Seeds brown, oblong or ovate-oblong, 1.0-1.5 × 0.6-0.7 mm, wingless, finely papillate.

Flowering

May-July

Fruiting

May-July

Year naturalised

1969

Origin

Europe

Etymology

lepidium: Scale-shaped (pods)

ruderale: From the Latin ruderatum ‘rubble, waste’, meaning growing in wasteland or amongst debris

Description

The above description was modified from Flora of China, Vol. 8, www.eFloras.org. by P. J. de Lange 2 October 2010 

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