Crambe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the plant genus. For the English village, see Crambe, North Yorkshire. For other uses, see Crambe (disambiguation).
| Crambe | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Crambe maritima in Estonia | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Brassicales |
| Family: | Brassicaceae |
| Genus: | Crambe L. |
| Species | |
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.