Planodes virginicum (L.) Greene

Virginia Rockcress; Southern Sandcress; Virginia Winged Rockcress

Herb

Annual

Vascular

Southern Sandcress is a native winter annual in the Mustard family (Brassicaceae).It can be found throughout Alabama. Southern Sandcress occurs in fallow fields, on roadside, and in other disturbed habitats. It has variously been place in the genera Arabis, Cardamine, and Sibara. Al-Shehbaz in his treatment in the Flora of North America states that “it is distinct from all three both morphologically and phylogenetically, and it appears to be most closely allied to Cardamine” and placed it in its own genus. Southern Sandcress has a basal rosette of pinnatifid to pinnatisect leaves. The leaves can be pubescent or glabrous. Small four petaled white flowers are produced in corymbs (a flat-topped flower cluster in which the individual flower stalks grow upward from various points of the main stem to approximately the same height). The racemes elongate as the fruit mature. The fruit is a silique (a dry dehiscent fruit that is four times longer than broad characteristic of the mustard family. When the fruit splits, the seed are exposed on a paper septum located between the two halves of the fruit.) --A. Diamond

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Native FAC (NWPL)

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