BERBERIDACEAE -- Barberry Family - New Mexico Flores

Scientific Name:
Camelina microcarpa
Size:
30 - 80 cm
BRASSICACEAE -- Mustard Family
Description:
Erect annual herb, stems branched above.
Herbage rough-hairy, with simple and branched
or star-shaped hairs. Leaves alternate,
triangular-lanceolate, sessile, with smooth
edges, the leaf bases wrapped around stem.
Flowers perfect, on glabrous upward curving
stalks 8 - 18 mm long, in loose clusters at
branch ends, greatly elongating in fruit. Sepals
4, erect, hairy, deciduous, 2 - 3 mm long. Petals
4, spatulate, 3 - 4 mm long, rounded at the apex.
Stamens 6, 4 equal, 2 shorter. Fruit a glabrous
obovoid pod 5 - 7 mm long, 3 - 4 mm in
diameter, divided into 2 compartments by a
membrane. Style persistent, about half as long
as pod.
145
Common Name:
Smallseed falseflax
Color:
White to yellow
Notes:
With its narrow, alternate leaves and stalked
fruits scattered along the upper stems, falseflax
resembles true flax, Linum usitatissimum. Both
are native to Eurasia, imported to the United
States by European colonists. The genus name
Camelina is derived from two Greek roots,
chamae, “lowly” or “creeping” and linon,
“flax”, in reference to the common presence of
Camelina in cultivated flax fields. C.
microcarpa blooms from May through June
between 4500 and 7500 ft.
Introduced*