Crambe
| Crambe | |
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| Crambe maritima in Estonia | |
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| Genus: | Crambe |
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About 20 species, including: | |
Crambe is a genus of about 20 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the cabbage family Brassicaceae, native to a variety of habitats in Europe, Turkey, southwest and central Asia and eastern Africa. They carry dense racemes of tiny white or yellow flowers on (mostly leafless) stems above the basal leaves.[1]
The word "crambe" derives, via the Latin crambe, from the Greek κράμβη, a kind of cabbage.[2]
The genus includes among its species:-
- Crambe abyssinica, grown for an oil from the seeds that has similar characteristics to whale oil
- Crambe cordifolia, an herbaceous perennial
- Crambe maritima (seakale), a halophyte sometimes used as a leaf vegetable
Crambe species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the lime-speck pug.
References
- ^ RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants. United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. 2008. p. 1136. ISBN 1405332964.
- ^ Shorter Oxford English dictionary, 6th ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. 2007. p. 3804. ISBN 0199206872.
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