THLASPIL. - PENNYCRESS
Scientific Description:
Annual, biennial or perennial herbs with simple leaves, petiolate or sessile, glabrous, very rarely with an indumentum of simple hairs or papillose. Calyx not saccate; sepals oblique, all broadly membranous-margined. Petals white, rose or yellowish, ovate. Filaments narrow, linear. Honey glands present on each side of shorter stamens. No median honey glands. Ovary 2−16-ovulate. Fruit an angustiseptate silicula (rarely ± a siliqua), dehiscent, strongly or weakly compressed, winged or not; (1−)2−6 seeds in each loculus; septum often undulate. Seeds mucilaginous or not. Radicle accumbent.
Reference:
Hedge IC (1965). Thlaspı L., In: Davis PH (ed.), Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1: 330.
Public Description:
Thlaspi, which consists of annual, biennial and perennial plants, is commonly known as “pennycress” and grows naturally in Central and Southern Europe and South-west Asia. There are approximately 79 species in the world and 31 species (37 taxa) in Türkiye. The pennycress can be used to purify pollution caused by heavy metals which proved to be a hyperaccumulator against heavy metals such as zinc and cadmium.
References:
Anonymous 1 (2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thlaspi, Accessed date: 29.12.2015.
Anonymous 2 (2015). http://www.theplantlist.org/browse/A/Brassicaceae/Thlaspi/, Accessed date: 29.12.2015.
Mutlu B (2012). Thlaspı L., In: Güner, A., Aslan, S., Ekim, T., Vural, M. & Babaç, M.T. (eds.), Türkiye Bitkileri Listesi (Damarlı Bitkiler). Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanik Bahçesi ve Flora Araştırmaları Derneği Yayını. İstanbul, pp. 297−299.
