Smelowskia borealis (Greene) Drury & Rollins
 
FamilyCruciferae — APG family: Brassicaceae
SynonymsAcroschizocarpus kolianus Gombbecz, Ermania borealis (Greene) Hult., Melanidion boreale Greene
DescriptionPlant with long, branched, fibrous root; caudex mostly simple, covered by withered leaves; basal leaves oblong, ovate to cuneate, entire or mostly 3-toothed in apex, hirsute and densely canescent with short, branched hairs; stems decumbent, with small, oblong or linear leaves; sepals oblong to ovate, usually purplish, scarious- margined, hirsute; petals spatulate, nearly twice as long as sepals, lavender or cream-colored; siliques at first ovate or obovate, in age papery, long, nearly falcate, often broader in apex and irregularly twisted, with slender style.
EcologyRock slides in high mountains, to at least 2,000 meters; prefers calcareous rocks.
Taxonomy
notes		Four varieties have been described by Drury and Rollins: var. Jordalii, with cadu- cous calyx and style shorter than 0.5 mm.; var. villosa, with persistent calyx petals 4-6 mm long, style longer than 0.5 mm, and white tomentose leaves; var. borealis, described above, differing from var. villosa in having fewer, predominantly white- villous leaves, petals 3-4.5 mm, and uninflated siliques; and var. Koliana, differing from var. borealis in having membranaceous inflatedsiliques. To some extent, at least, these varieties represent different stages of development.
Hultén's Flora About

This is a digital representation of Eric Hultén’s ‘Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories: A Manual of the Vascular Plants’, which was published by Stanford University Press in 1968. The book was digitized by C. Webb (at UAMN) as part of the Flora of Alaska project, with funding by the US NSF (Grant 1759964 to Ickert-Bond & Webb), and with permission of Stanford University Press. Data and images © 1968 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univ. Usage licence: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. NB: You may find OCR errors; please refer to the hard-copy if in doubt.