io8 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



It seems also to be a common plant in market 

 gardens or allotments, where I have found it persistent 

 from year to year. Where it does grow it is usually 

 rather abundant. Penny Cress may also be found in 

 fields and by the roadside. 



In habit the plant is usually erect, and the stem is 

 slender, simple, or branched above, hairless. The 

 radical leaves are stalked, but they soon disappear, 

 when the stem elongates. The stem-leaves are 

 smooth, oblong or lance-shaped, arrow-shaped, the 

 auricles well-marked, toothed, with a few coarse 

 teeth, the lower narrowed at the base. 



The flowers are white with erect sepals, equal 

 below, and inversely ovate petals. The style is very 

 short, so that the stigma is nearly stalkless. 



The pods are borne in long racemes, and are flat, 

 short, round, half an inch across, with a very broad 

 wing and a deep notch at the top, in which the very 

 small style is persistent. The silicula is not so long 

 as the stalk, which is slender and spreading. The 

 marginal nerve of the valves is delicate and the lobes 

 of the wings at the notch may overlap. The seeds 

 are numerous, six in each cell, dark, oblong, with 

 ridges or arched wrinkles concentrically rough with 

 striae, dotted. 



Pennycress is in flower from May to July, and is a 

 herbaceous annual. It varies from i to i8 in. in 

 height. 



Honey lies in small green glands on each side of 

 the short stamens. The anthers and stamens ripen 



