Habit: Perennial herb (biennial); caudex simple or branched, persistent leaf bases generally absent; rosetted or not; rosette at ground surface or elevated on woody base; hairs simple or 2--14-rayed, stalked or sessile.
Stem: simple or branched, leafy.
Leaf: basal petioled, simple, generally entire or dentate, generally hairy; cauline sessile, base generally lobed, entire or dentate.
Inflorescence: generally elongated.
Flower: sepals bases generally not sac-like; petals generally white, lavender, or purple, claw present or 0; pollen ellipsoid in sexual pls, spheric in plants with asexual seeds.
Fruit: silique, dehiscent, generally linear, edges generally parallel, unsegmented, flat parallel to septum; stigma entire or 2-lobed.
Seed: in 1 or 2 rows, winged or not.
Species In Genus: 110+ species: temperate North America, Russian Far East.
Etymology: (T.W. Boecher, Danish cytogeneticist, 1909--1983)
Note: Some species with both fertile & sterile stems. Previously included in
Arabis, but the 2 genera in different tribes.
Boechera horizontalis (Greene) Windham & Al-Shehbaz [
Arabis suffrutescens S. Watson var.
horizontalis (Greene) Rollins] not in California.
Unabridged Note: Hybrids with spheric pollen and morphological intermediacy generally more common than sexual diploids (with ellipsoid pollen).Jepson eFlora Author: Michael D. Windham & Ihsan A. Al-Shehbaz
Reference: Windham & Al-Shehbaz 2006--2007 Harvard Pap Bot 11:61--88, 11:257--274, 12:235--257
Unabridged Reference: Al-Shehbaz 2003 Novon 13:381--391Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Boechera
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