Question

Which plant is described by these clues? The genus name descends from an ancient Greek word for a sharp-tasting watercress, itself built on an older word for peppergrass. It rode out the last glaciation in scattered mountain refuges and is still confined to the eastern Alps, the western Carpathians and the Dinaric ranges, roughly 500 to 4,100 feet (150 to 1,250 m) up. Each ripe pod splits from the base upward and its two {valves} fall away, leaving a papery translucent {septum} still stretched inside a persistent rim. Its slim erect {siliques}, about 0.8 to 1.4 inches (2 to 3.5 cm) long and under a tenth of an inch (2 mm) wide, hold flattened seeds in a single file, every one of them bare of any wing. Four {petals} stand opposite one another in a cross above six {stamens} in all, the outer two of those six noticeably shorter than the inner four. Crushed foliage gives off a sharp peppery smell within seconds, the hot volatile bite that {glucosinolates} release on damage. The dark glossy foliage sits out the whole winter, undersides and short curved {petioles} flushing red-purple in the cold. Small white flowers open for about three weeks in earliest spring while the deciduous canopy overhead is still bare, and the colony then creeps outward by only 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) a year on short {rhizomes}. Its species epithet is simply Latin for three-leaved, and every long-stalked leaf obliges with three broad, bluntly toothed {leaflets}. Nurseries commonly sell this evergreen woodland carpeter under a common name that properly belongs to two North American relatives once placed in the genus Dentaria.

Accepted Answer

Cardamine trifolia

Name That Plant #078