Annual or perennial herbs, erect or procumbent, branching from the base, 10-30 cm high; stems, leaves, pedicels, sepals and ovaries strigose with appressed medifixed hairs, glabrescent, the silicules eventually glabrous. Leaves linear-lanceolate, acute, entire, 2-4 cm x 2-4 mm. Racemes many-flowered, lax in fruit. Pedicels spreading ± horizontally with the fruits erect. Petals 3-3-5 mm long, blade circular, clawed. Siliculae 2-5-3-5 mm long, broadly elliptic to obovate; seeds solitary in each cell; style 0-5 mm long, slender.
Use
Lobularia maritima (L.)Desv., in J. Bot. Appl. 3 : 162 (1814); Tutin et al., I.e. (1964). Type from Europe.
Range
Widely cultivated, frequently used as an edging plant. Occurs as a garden escape, and in some places perhaps naturalized. A native of the Mediterranean region. Common name: Sweet Alyssum.
