Rorippa sinuata
Encyclopedia
Rorippa sinuata is a species of flowering plant in the mustard family
Brassicaceae
Brassicaceae, a medium sized and economically important family of flowering plants , are informally known as the mustards, mustard flowers, the crucifers or the cabbage family....

 known by the common name spreading yellowcress. It is native to North America, including most all of the western and central United States, where it grows in many types of moist and wet habitat, such as lakeshores and riverbanks, meadows, and mudflat
Mudflat
Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. Mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of...

s. It is a perennial herb producing spreading stems up to 40 or 50 centimeters long. It is densely hairy, the hairs rounded like sacs or vesicles. The leaves are up to 8 centimeters long and have blades are deeply toothed, lobed, or divided into smaller leaflets. The inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

 is an elongated raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

 occupying the top portion of the stem containing many tiny yellow flowers just a few millimeters long. The fruit is a curved silique
Silique
A silique or siliqua is a fruit of 2 fused carpels with the length being more than three times the width. The outer walls of the ovary usually separate when ripe, leaving a persistent partition...

which is variable in size and shape but generally contains many minute seeds.

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