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| 100+ plants of Field Pepperwort at Sker Farm 30th April 2014 |
Last week I stumbled upon a good population of an unfamiliar
Lepidium at Sker Farm, which I suspected was either
Smith's Pepperwort Lepidium heterophyllum or
Field Pepperwort Lepidium campestre. Both are scarce plants locally and their initial identification was not as simple as the key made it appear. A key character of Field Pepperwort are the vesicles on the seed capsules, these appearing as shiny bumps on the valves as shown below.
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Ripening seed capsule of Field Pepperwort
showing characteristic vesicles (shiny blobs) |
As I coincidentally had plants of Smith's Pepperwort just coming into flower, grown from seed collected at Overton Mere last year from the last remaining two plants there, I was able to directly compare the flowers of the two species (too early for seed of Smith's Pepperwort). As can be seen in the image below, the most noticeable features of the inflorescence are the larger and more open petals of Smith's which also shows reddish undehisced anthers.
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| Smith's Pepperwort (left) and Field Pepperwort (right) |
Thanks to Tim Rich & Arthur Chater for confirming the identification.
